


Gangrene Queen

by DiamondsAreForever



Series: Gangrene Queen [1]
Category: Powerpuff Girls
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiamondsAreForever/pseuds/DiamondsAreForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Princess's prankster cousin Angela comes to visit from Cityville, chaos ensues. Finding herself bored with the privileged life of being a Morbucks, Angela runs away in search of adventure and befriends the Gangrene Gang causing mayhem for everyone around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not a Princess

The limo drove off into the afternoon as Princess sat in the limo with her nose up in the air. A normal, less-disillusioned person would be noticing what a nice, sunny September afternoon it was or the cute little kids running up and down the sidewalks buying ice cream from the jovial ice cream man with whatever pocket money they had. Princess didn’t care. She had a freezer at home stocked with every flavor of ice cream imaginable. After all, Daddy Morbucks installed it for her over the summer.

The limo pulled into the driveway of the Morbucks mansion, the most expensive house in Townsville. Princess merely sneers as the chauffer parks, and steps out to help the little girl out of the limo. Dirty urchin. Didn’t he know that the hired help were supposed to wash their hands before handling her? This is what happens when Daddy hires new help over the summer. They take _forever_ to figure out how Princess likes things done.

Princess walked through the huge double-doors of her mansion as Jeeves, the head butler, greeted her.

“Miss Princess, good to see you home,” he greeted warmly.

“Shut up!” Princess shrieked. “It’s been a long day. I need you to get started on my homework for me.”

“Of course Miss Princess, but your father told me I was not supposed to help you,” Jeeves reminded her.

“I’ll pay you if you do it and keep your mouth shut!” Princess snapped. “Geez, what was Daddy thinking? It’s not right for a princess to have to do homework!” Princess grumbled to herself as she walked through the parlor. She was about to head up to her bedroom.

“Oh, by the way,” Jeeves said. Princess stopped in her tracks. “Your cousin Angela is coming to visit from Cityville. She will be staying with us for several months while her parents are in Paris.”

“WHAT?” Princess asked incredulously.  “When is she gonna be here? Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things anymore?!”

The doorbell rang. Jeeves opened the doors to reveal a girl about fourteen years old. She was five foot four and muscular with brown curls that went down to her waist. She had wide brown eyes and an eager smile on her face. She wore a black and white dress that looked like something from out of an old Audrey Hepburn movie. Princess trudged down the stairs and to the front door to get a better look at the girl.

“Princess!” The girl cried as she bent down and gave Princess the tightest hug she had ever gotten in her life.

“Angela! Get off of me!” Princess mumbled furiously. “You’re crushing me!”

“It’s SO good to see you!” Angela declared. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“It’s only been six months!” Princess shrieked. Her aunt and uncle came to visit earlier in the year and they brought Angela with them.

“May I take your things up to your room?” Jeeves asked. Daddy Morbucks had a special room set up for Angela whenever she wanted to visit.

“Jeeves, no, I got it. Don’t bother,” Angela protested as Jeeves tried to take the two heavy, black suitcases that Angela brought with her.

“Angela, let Jeeves do it! What does Daddy pay him for?” Princess squealed.

“Maybe Jeeves is overworked,” Angela said as she took her suitcases and struggled to carry them up the many flights of spiraling stairs into her room.

Princess sighed. Oh yes, this was her cousin Angela all right.

“WAIT!” Princess screamed as she raced up the stairs after Angela. “No one asked me if this was okay!”

Princess huffed up the staircase and barged into Angela’s room as Angela began unpacking her things.

“Jeez!” Angela laughed sarcastically. “I guess no one in this family knocks anymore!”

“What are you _doing_ here?” Princess whined. “Go home!”

“I’d love to, but my parents didn’t want me staying home by myself while they went on their second honeymoon in Paris,” Angela grinned. “Besides, I think this is one of Mom’s crazy ideas to turn me into a proper lady.”

“So she sent you _here_?” Princess asked in disbelief. “That makes no sense! Hasn’t Aunt Penelope heard of charm school?”

“She already tried that,” Angela laughed as she hung up a purple argyle sweater in her closet. She began folding a pair of dress pants. “But I never paid attention and on the last day during the debutant ball, I failed because I forgot how to dance the Waltz and I couldn’t remember which fork you’re supposed to eat with first.”

“Well _duh_!” Princess said as she rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows you start from the outside and work your way in!”

“You do?” Angela asked as her curiosity heightened.

“Yes!” Princess shrieked in annoyance.

“Anyway, Mom also tried sending me to boarding school, but I was expelled. I forgot what I did wrong though,” Angela continued. “My roommate was nasty, so I glued prunes to her uniform while she was asleep. I also put a whoopee cushion in the headmistress’s chair in the mess hall. And then there was that time I ran up and down the halls singing ‘The Song that Never Ends’. That was funny! I also reset all the clocks in the school to run ahead three hours so we’d get let out of class early. Oh, and I left my tuna sandwich in my desk for a week…”

“Eww!” Princess screamed. “You _disgust_ me!”

“I think though it was the cherry bomb I put in the toilet in the upstairs bathroom, though,” Angela said as she laughed at the expression on Princess’s face. “Anyway, I'm done unpacking. Let’s go say hello to Uncle. And don’t worry. I promise you’ll _never_ know I'm here!”

“Ugh, whatever,” Princess snorted. “By the way, the 1960’s called. They want their dress back.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Angela laughed.

Princess knew that wouldn’t be the case. When they went into one of the many living rooms in the Morbucks mansion to go find Daddy Morbucks, he offered Angela a welcome gift of several thousand dollars. Of course, Angela wouldn’t accept any of it. Princess was shocked. Although Angela’s family was as wealthy as hers, there still was no reason for her to say no when Daddy Morbucks offered money. Daddy Morbucks (whose face we never saw in the cartoons and we STILL won’t see in this story) sat in his huge leather chair in front of the fireplace with the money in his outreached hand.

“It’s really nice of you,” Angela smiled as she rejected the money. “But you don’t have to do that. I'm happy just to be here in your home while my parents are away.”

At dinner, the small family sat at the long dining room table. There was an abundance of food, but Angela refused to eat any of it.

“Is something wrong, Miss Angela?” Mrs. Dumond, one of the housekeepers who was typically in charge of setting and clearing the table, asked.  

“No, I'm just not hungry,” Angela said. She yawned and added, “I’ve had such a long trip. I think I'm just gonna skip dinner and go straight to bed.” Princess glared at Angela as she floated innocently out of the dining room and up the stairs to her room.

Later that night…

Angela looked over at her alarm clock. It was nearly midnight. It would’ve been an hour since Daddy Morbucks had his evening pipe and his glass of fine French wine before going to bed. Princess was already supposed to be in bed by nine. Angela threw her frilly purple comforter off her bed and drew back the sheer violet canopy.

She tiptoed as quietly as a mouse out of her room and down the staircase to the basement. Most of the servants had either gone to bed or gone home for the night. She quietly turned the knob on the pantry door. To her delight, it was unlocked. She quickly dashed inside the cold room and flicked on the light. At home, she played this game all the time. She would refuse to eat her supper and then sneak into the pantry or the kitchen and eat to her heart’s content. Why? Simple. It was more fun that way. What was the fun in doing what you were _supposed_ to do?

Angela ripped open a bag of potato chips and began snacking. Now _this_ was dinner fit for a queen.

The next day…

It was a lazy Saturday morning, Princess’s favorite day to just lie in bed and watch cartoons all morning. Normally she would have one of the servants bring her chocolate chip pancakes in bed, but this morning Princess was in an especially foul mood because her father insisted on having a sit-down breakfast with the whole family in the dining room.

As Princess grumbled her way down the hallway, she noticed the door leading down the corridor to the vault where her father kept his gold was wide open. That door was _always_ locked. Who could’ve figured out how to open it? She grunted in an annoyed tone and quickly walked down to the vault, which was wide open. Inside, someone had carefully constructed an elaborate fort out of gold bricks.

“ANGELA!” Princess shrieked at the top of her lungs. But Angela was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s the password?” whispered a voice from inside the gold fort.

“I'm feeling nice this morning, so you’d _better_ get out of there or I'm gonna tell Daddy you’re in his vault! He’s gonna kill you!” Princess shrieked.

“No password?” came the voice from inside the vault. “Very well. You leave me no choice!”

Angela sprang out from inside the fort and leapt on top of Princess, tackling her to the ground. She began tickling the spoiled little girl as she laughed hysterically. Tears dripped from her eyes from laughing so hard as she begged for mercy.

“Get off!” Princess begged through her laughter.

Angela finally ceased. Princess’s laughter turned into a furious rage.

“So much for not noticing you’re even here,” Princess grunted.

“Oh come on! You used to _love_ that when you were little!” Angela grinned. “Now come on, let’s go get some breakfast.”

Angela’s antics didn’t end with the gold fort. She put a bowl of baked beans in the chair where Princess was supposed to sit. As a result, Princess was forced to walk around with a brown stain on the back of her dress until she could change her clothes. Angela also would hide behind the corner in the hallway with a squirt gun and would squirt anyone who walked by in the crotch. While Princess was using the shower, Angela snuck into her room and folded all the bed sheets on Princess’s bed into origami shapes. Angela darted away when Princess emerged from her shower, steamy and rosy in her yellow terry bathrobe. Upon seeing her bed sheets, Princess shrieked, as she clearly could not take a joke.

Meanwhile,in a shabby wooden shack lived five green-skinned rogues whom we know as The Gangrene Gang. They were plugging in various (stolen) instruments into a (also stolen) amplifier.

“We’re gonna sound sssssooo good!” Hissed Snake as Ace clocked him in the chin. There was only so much of his annoying right-hand man he could take. Snake quickly apologized and picked up a bass guitar.

“All right, Grubber, you ready?” Ace asked his Quasimodo-like comrade. Grubber merely blew a raspberry in response.  The raspberry echoed off the microphone loudly so that everyone within a ten mile radius of the dump could hear.

“Which song are we playing tonight?” Arturo asked in his short, snappy Hispanic accent as he sat behind the keyboard.

“Billy wanna drum!” Said the slow, green behemoth eagerly.

Ace picked up his electric guitar. “We’re gonna play some Led Zeppelin,” he said in his nasally Italian-New Yorker accent. He grinned as Arturo began playing the first few chords to “All of My Love”. Ace followed on guitar, which wasn’t tuned very well. In fact, everyone was horribly out of tune or off key, except for Grubber who managed to perfectly emulate Robert Plant.

Twenty seconds later, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup burst through the ceiling of the shack.

“Drop the instruments and no one gets hurt!” Blossom demanded.

“Oh girls! You’re just in time for the concert!” Ace said in his charming, manipulative way.

“We’re going to have you locked up for disturbing the peace!” Bubbles announced in her overly-squeaky voice.

“All right, who ratted us out?!” Ace, losing his patience, wanted to know.

“You did! You forgot we have super-sonic hearing and we can hear you all the way from our house!” Buttercup retorted. “We’re _trying_ to sleep!”

“Now that’sssss just not fair!” Snake hissed.

Our heroes were about to strike as they do in the manner we all know and love when Ace said in his attempt to charm the girls, “We just got out of the joint after ya sent us there last week! If we stop playing, will ya leave us alone? I promise we won’t do it again.”

“He does have a point,” Bubbles, whose overly sensitive tendencies often got the better of her, pointed out. “We already _did_ throw them in jail a week ago.”

“Bubbles! Quit being so sensitive!” Buttercup groaned. She was still furious with Ace for playing around with her heart back when she had a crush on him and she would give anything and everything to watch him and his friends suffer.

“Bubbles is right,” Blossom agreed, much to Buttercup’s dismay. “Besides, it’s not like anyone called the hotline. We overheard them, so it wouldn’t be fair if we just decided to beat them up right here, right now.”

“Your guys’ music sucks,” Buttercup protested. “I say we just beat the crap out of you right here, right now!”

“Don’t like Big Billy’s drums?” Billy asked as his lower lip dropped and his eyes welled up. He burst into tears emitting a horrible, horrible cry that knocked the girls off their feet.

“Oh no, please don’t cry! She didn’t mean it!” Bubbles protested as she and everyone else had their hands over their ears.

“Fine!” Buttercup groaned. “We’ll kick your butts tomorrow. Just quit playing that noise!”

The Powerpuff Girls flew as far away from the dump as they could get from the noise, leaving their signature pastel trail in the night sky.

“Nice touch,” Ace said as he high-fived Billy, who finally stopped wailing.

“So what do we do now?” Arturo asked. “We gotta keep it down.”

“We can always go behind the electronics store. No one will hear us while we’re jacking stuff when the truck comes by to restock the store.”

The five of them laughed wickedly as they left the shack.

 

Meanwhile, back at the Morbucks residence, Angela sat in her room as boredom set in. Earlier that afternoon, she chopped her curly brown locks up to her chest and straightened them before streaking them with sections of gold.

Sure, the pranks she played on Princess and the various servants who worked in the house were lots of fun. But now she was bored. She’d grow just as bored here as she did at charm school and boarding school. Surely there was some other way to find the thrills she was seeking. That’s when she got the idea right after the bed sheet origami showdown.

She would change her hair and wear a disguise. She would go by a different name. She wouldn’t be Angela Morbucks anymore. Instead, she would just be Angie. Maybe she could be Queen of Thieves or something else exciting like that.

Angela put away her black and white dress. Instead, she wore a gold tube-top, a pink mini skirt, and sparkly blue tights. She looked like a prostitute, but somehow that didn’t bother her. She needed to blend in with the ordinary crowd at least a little.

The digital numbers on Angela’s alarm clock changed to 12:00 AM. She took a deep breath and crossed her fingers. Angela stared at herself in the mirror, staring at her exciting, dangerous alter-ego as opposed to the very privileged, very bored girl she was used to seeing. The only reminder of her old identity was a heart-shaped birthmark at the nape of her neck.

Of course she didn’t want to run away forever. But she needed to make the most of her time before returning back to the humdrum existence of her refined world.

Angela tied her knotted bed sheets to her bed post. She opened her bedroom window and tossed it out, climbing down it like a rope.

“They never mentioned how hard this was in the movies,” Angela said quietly to herself.

As her feet touched bottom, Angela sprinted as fast as she could. Luckily, she was very strong, so she was able to climb the huge cottonwood tree in the front yard to get over the fence without any problems. Finally, she was free from the Morbucks Mansion, nothing to hold her back.

She sprinted so fast down the streets in the wealthy community, her feet carrying her so fast it was almost as if she could fly. 


	2. Girl on the Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela has run away from her uncle's house in search of adventure. What will happen when she meets the Gangrene Gang?

Angela wasn’t sure where to start with her newfound freedom. Where would she go? She hopped on a bus out of the wealthy community and into the downtown area. Back in Cityville, she was _never_ allowed to venture downtown by herself, even during the daylight.

Townsville was very quiet at night. Almost everything closed at around eight or nine. Booooring! The only people on the street were the bums, the creepers, the thieves, and so on.

A sketchy character that looked to be in his early thirties walked up to her. He was balding slightly and had a porn-star moustache. He put a hundred dollars in her hand. Angela was absolutely dumbfounded.

“What’s this for?” She asked.

“You’re a pretty lady,” he said through his rat-like teeth. “Aren’t you gonna give me something in return?”

“Eww, you’re a sicko,” Angela shuddered.

“Come here, and I’ll show you what you’re supposed to do,” the sketchy guy said. He grabbed her from behind. Angela elbowed him in the stomach then kicked him in the shin. She backhanded him in the nose as he cursed and dropped her like a hot potato, giving her a chance to run as fast as she could.

What would that guy have _done_ to her? Oh well. It never happened, so she didn’t have to think about it. Angela then stopped to realize that she was either the craziest girl alive or the bravest. A small part of her wanted to turn back and return to the Morbucks Mansion. The rest of her wanted to wait and see what would happen next.

Angela continued walking, spending most of her time picking the pockets of various vagrants or picking through trash to see if anyone left behind anything useful. By now, she was growing increasingly tired and cold, and a little lonely. Going home sounded like a good idea right about now.

That is, until she came to a dark alleyway behind Townsville Electronics.

Behind the building was an enormous truck full of valuable electronics: DVD players, televisions, game systems, the works. Angela’s eyes widened. She glanced around. No one was in sight.

She’d never stolen a big-ticket item like this before. Why bother? Her parents would just buy it for her. Still…

She quickly climbed into the back of the truck as fast as she could. She grabbed a box containing a very expensive DVD player and quickly jumped out of the truck. She hid behind a trash can when the truck driver slammed the gate of the truck closed and hopped back in before driving off.

Angela sprinted towards the end of the alley and nearly smacked into a tall, skinny guy with slick black hair, dark shades, a peach fuzz mustache, and a colorful vest. He was surrounded by four other creepy-looking guys and all of them with sickly green skin. They looked to be a little bit older than her, but not too much.

“Yer outta yer territory, ain't ya, pretty lady?” He asked her. “This is _our_ turf. We’s been comin’ here to steal stuff for a long time. Longer than you have.”

“Psh, if you’re looking for the inventory truck, it’s gone. You just missed it,” Angela said as she rolled her eyes at him. Her fists were balled in case she needed them.

“Ace, I don’t think she’s sssscared of usss,” Ace’s serpentine companion hissed as Ace clocked him in the jaw.

“Why would I be scared of you guys?” Angela asked. “I mean, you guys are _green_ for God’s sake. What’s so scary about that?”

The five members of the Gangrene Gang just stopped and stared at Angela.

“Were you looking for this?” She said slyly as she showed them the box containing the DVD player. She grinned wickedly. “I might share this with you if you give me something in return.”

“What is it you want?” Ace wanted to know. “We don’t got nothin’.”

“Got a place I can crash for the night?” Angela asked. There was definitely no point in her going back to Morbucks Mansion right now.

“You’re an interesting girl,” Ace said as he studied Angela carefully. “I’ve never seen you before. What’s yer name?”

“Angie,” Angela replied, remembering the alias she planned on using. “And is there any chance there’s a place around here that’s _not_ closed at nine at? If you can name one, dinner’s on me.”

“Yeah right,” Ace scoffed.

“Wanna bet?” Angela asked as she took out the money the sketchy guy looking for a good time gave her.

“Where’d you get that?” Arturo asked as their eyes all widened in disbelief.

“Let’s just say that people give you a lot of things just for being pretty,” Angela grinned. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the leader of the green gangsters, no matter how hard she tried. She’d never felt this way before, but nothing could wipe that grin off her face. She felt her face getting warmer and her heart began to beat harder. She wondered what kind of eyes were behind those shades.

“Come on. I know a place that’ll deliver pizza at three in the morning,” Ace said.

Back at the shack in the Townsville dump, the Gangrene Gang and their new friend sat around a wooden table and devoured a supreme pizza. The guys debated on what they should do the next day. Ace continued to watch the strange girl they picked up in the alley. He knew she’d been staring at him all night, giggling at every word he said, her face turning so red you could land a plane on it. He could see right through that shit-eating smile on her face.

Ace was normally very quick to grab an opportunity when it reared its ugly head, but this time, he wasn’t sure if there was one. He could just lead her on the same way he led on Buttercup, but what would be the point? Sure, this girl had sticky fingers and it was very easy for her to get her way simply because she was pretty, but she really didn’t have anything he wanted. Yet.

He would let her stay for as long as she needed to. Maybe eventually there would be something of hers that he absolutely had to have. And then he could take advantage of this little schoolgirl crush she had on him.

She couldn’t see his eyes; few people could from behind his shades. But she knew he was looking at her.

“What are _you_ looking at?” Angela asked teasingly as she giggled like the schoolgirl she was. He hated that laugh. The only thing that he could think of that was more annoying was the sound of Snake talking.

“Hey Ace,” Snake said. “She asssked you a quesssstion.” Ace merely socked him in the jaw.

Ace continued to discreetly look over Angela carefully while Arturo, Snake, and Angela argued about whether or not they should spend tomorrow de-pantsing random people or making fun of the nerds that hung out outside the comic book store as Grubber and Big Billy were having a belching contest. For now, Ace would just have to wait and see what this girl was all about.

 


	3. You Belong to the City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela has teamed up with the Gangrene Gang, but has Ace gotten in over his head letting a girl join the gang?

The next day, the Gangrene Gang ended up at the Townsville Mall. The entire time, Ace kept his eyes on Angela to see what she was capable of. So far, she wasn’t much different from the four guys he (sometimes) considered his friends: she was a complete nimrod.

Angela, Snake, Arturo, Grubber, and Big Billy had joined hands and began to sing as they skipped. Considering Big Billy was so, well, big, every time he skipped along, the floor would shake and sometimes crack. Ace merely shook his head with embarrassment. His idiot friends attempted to sing the theme from _The Wizard of Oz_. Random strangers looked at the gang as though they’d escaped from the psych ward.

“Weee’re off to see the…”

“Shut up!” Ace demanded. The group came to a halt and merely stared at the extremely irate leader.

“We’re ssssorry Ace,” Snake apologized. “We were just having fun!”

“We won’t sing anymore, I promise,” Angela swore. “Can we at least skip, though? It’s hilarious getting all these funny looks from random strangers who think we’ve escaped from the psych ward.”

“I like to skip,” Big Billy said slowly as he laughed unintelligibly.

“Ugh,” Ace groaned as he shook his head. “Fine! Just no singin’!”

As Angela and the four other green-skinned members of the gang skipped up and down the corridors of the mall, Ace wondered how it was even possible that this was the same girl who stole a DVD player by herself and managed to mysteriously score a nice amount of money from a stranger. Because today, she was acting dumber than a post.

The group continued to skip merrily as they left gaping holes in the floor thanks to Billy’s massive size.

“You five!” Shouted a mall cop. “No skipping! Your big friend is causing unbelievable collateral damage! Any more from you, and I’ll have you all arrested for disturbing the peace!”

Angela, Snake, Arturo, Grubber, and Big Billy stopped skipping and trudged away in disappointment.

“Buzz kill,” Angela muttered under her breath.

Ace couldn’t believe what he was doing, but he took the cop’s hands and said with the most gratitude he had _ever_ expressed in his life, “Thank you! Thank you! How can I ever repay you?”

“By letting go of my hands,” the cop said nervously.

“Consider it done!” Ace said as he let go of the cop’s hands. He kept walking when he found Arturo, Snake, Big Billy, and Grubber standing outside of a jewelry store.

“What are you’s doing here?” Ace asked. “And where’s Angie?”

“She went inside,” Arturo said. “We asked her if she’s ever shoplifted before, and she said no, so we went in there and the shopkeeper told us to get out.”

“Well what do you exsssspect?” Snake said. “We stole from him before. It was easy.”

The five members of the Gangrene Gang pressed their faces to the windows as they watched Angela interact with the shopkeeper.

Meanwhile, inside the store, the shopkeeper told Angela to sit down in a comfortable velvet chair as he showed her some beautiful diamond jewelry that Angela’s parents could’ve easily afforded with what they would’ve considered “chump change”.

“Are those boys who followed you into the store your _friends_?” Asked the shopkeeper, who spoke with a stereotypical snooty rich guy accent.

“No,” Angela lied. “I’ve never seen those guys in my life.” She hoped that they couldn’t hear her from outside the store.

“Very well. I have some _very_ nice things you might wish to try,” the shopkeeper insisted. “First though, I’d like to give you this _beautiful_ pair of eighteen karat diamond earrings,” he said as he took out a pair of beautiful, very large, diamond earrings. They were so large that when Angela put them on, she felt as though her head gained ten pounds.

“Thanks!” She said. “What’re these for?”

“Well, we don’t do this to _every_ customer,” the shopkeeper admitted. “But we _do_ choose to do it for every customer we _truly_ value. And I see that you are a young lady with _very_ discerning taste.”

“So basically in English, you’re giving me stuff because I'm pretty and extremely gullible,” Angela said.

“Bingo,” said the shopkeeper.

 _I'm not_ so _gullible,_ thought Angela. The shopkeeper turned his back to grab a few more pieces of jewelry from the storage room that he assumed Angela would like. She discreetly began stuffing diamond rings, earrings, and bracelets down her tube top between her breasts. Luckily, it wasn’t too terribly noticeable, but this was one of those times where Angela wished she could be larger than a B-cup.

Outside the shop, the Gangrene Gang waited impatiently while Angela tried things on that the shopkeeper brought for her and discreetly slipping various items into her cleavage every so often. Finally, she emerged from the store. No suspicious glances, no eyebrows to be raised, no alarms to be heard.

“The guy practically _gave_ me these earrings just for being a pretty and, as far as he knows, naive girl,” Angela said slyly as the guys laughed. Ace, however, did not look impressed.

“Yeah, but ya never actually _took_ anything from him,” Ace pointed out.

“Bull,” Angela said. “Let’s go some place where no one can see us, and I’ll show you _exactly_ what I took.”

It wasn’t easy; Angela had to make sure to watch her step or everything would spill out of her bra. But she managed to lead the gang outside of the mall as she reached between her cleavage and carefully withdrew every piece of diamond jewelry that she stole as the gang’s eyes widened. All, of course, except for Ace.

“Psh, big deal,” Ace said, less than impressed. “Anyone can steal from that guy. We used to do it all the time.”

“Yeah, til we gotsssss caught,” Snake reminded him. Of course, he got punched in the face.

“That still don’t mean anything,” Ace said. “All right, let’s see what else you can do.”

After hocking the jewelry for money (even though, much to Ace’s annoyance, Angela begged to keep a few pieces because she liked shiny things), they went back into the mall and went into a few different stores to try their little experiment over and over again. The same result happened: Angela walked in as the gang watched from outside the store. The shopkeeper said all sorts of sweet-nothings to Angela, suckered in by her wide brown eyes and her innocent smile before giving her free stuff. Just when he turned away, she quickly put her small, square hands to work, pilfering whatever looked good.

By the end of the day, Ace was slowly starting to warm up to Angela’s style of delinquency, even if she insisted on singing “The Song That Never Ends” the entire way back to the dump.

“Do you _always_ have to do that?” He asked in annoyance.

“Why not?” Angela responded with a giggle. “It might’ve got me thrown out of school, but then again, so did a million other things.”

“What’re talkin’ about?” Ace asked. “You actually went to school?”

“Didn’t you guys?” Angela wanted to know. She wasn’t going to answer that question. The last thing she needed to do was tell these guys who she really was.

“Once,” Arturo said. “The social worker busted us and then made us go to kindergarten with the Powerpuff Girls. Doesn’t he know we’re like, way too old for kindergarten?”

“I can count to ‘W’,” Big Billy bragged

“That’s so badass!” Angela cried. She was about to launch into the hilarious story of the time her cousin wanted to be a Powerpuff Girl and tried to buy her way into being a superhero. Until she remembered that by doing that, she’d give away her true identity.

“ _You_ think that was badass?” Ace asked incredulously. “Do you even know who they _are_? They ruin all our fun! Every time we wanna do something cool, they come in and ruin everything and beat the crap out of us! Oh wait, I forgot, yer probably not even _from_ here are ya?”

“You could say that,” Angela said discreetly. “That doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t know who they are.”

As they walked the downtown area, they met up with the same sketchy guy who tried soliciting Angela for sex the night before.

“Whoa, I didn’t realize you were someone else’s property!” The sketchy guy said in slight shock. “I'm so sorry.”

“You know this guy, Angie?” Ace asked.

“That’s the guy from last night,” Angela whispered with a wink, hoping that would be enough for him to understand.

“Well, I mean if these guys are your pimps, then I guess I should apologize for last night,” the sketchy guy said.

“What’s going on here?” Arturo asked.

“Oh no,” Angela said seductively. “If you want some of this, I'm all yours tonight. You guys go ahead.” The gang stared at her as though she was absolutely crazy. “Beat it!” She shouted.

The Gangrene Gang disappeared into an alley, watching to see what Angela would do next. Surely she wouldn’t be crazy enough to give the guy what he wanted. Would she?

“Hey! I can’t see what’s happening!” Arturo complained. Big Billy lifted him up so that he could get a better view of the scene.

“Why don’t we do it right here?” Angela suggested seductively as the sketchy guy’s eyes began to widen.

Angela got down on her knees and began sliding her hands below the belt. The sketchy guy was noticeably getting more and more excited. 

“Shouldn’t we help her? This can’t end well,” Arturo said.

“She said she knew what she was doin’,” Ace replied, only half sure of himself.

“I can’tssss watch,” Snake said fearfully as he covered his eyes.

“Oh God, Angie,” Ace shuddered.

“Oops, I almost forgot,” Angela said innocently. “You need to pay me first.”

The sketchy guy reached into his pocket for his wallet. When he looked up, Angela had disappeared into the night.

Angela found the gang in the alleyway, all of them looking extremely relieved upon seeing her unscathed. Oh my God, did they actually _care_ about her? Angela grinned.

“Don’t _do_ that!” Ace scolded.

“Don’t do what? Don’t trick a really horny guy into thinking I'm a prostitute so I can steal his wallet and get away?” Angela asked as she held up the sketchy guy’s wallet.

“You know what, you ain’t so bad, kid,” Ace admitted. “That was brilliant.” The other guys agreed, even Grubber expressed it by blowing a series of lively raspberries. “Now come on, let’s go home.”

Later that night, as the rest of the gang was sound asleep in the shack at the dump, Angela was wide awake. She shivered a little. She was used to sleeping in a luxurious, queen-sized bed with warm comforters instead of on an inflatable mattress with torn up, dirty blankets. Instead of her warm bedroom, she was in a chilly, poorly heated shack with five guys she really didn’t know very well and would probably turn on her at any given moment.

Yet at the same time, she never felt more at home. This was the thrill and adventure her heart had been seeking all her life. Always being the bull in the china shop at boarding school and charm school and her randomness and prankster ways constantly getting her in trouble at home, this was the place where Angela could really be herself. Even if she was pretending to be somebody else.

She turned over as the light of the crescent September moon shone through the cracks in the ceiling. Across the room, Big Billy was on a box-spring mattress as he snored loud enough for the walls to shake. The mattress creaked under his weight Angela’s eyes continued to wander. Grubber, on the other hand, merely blew a series of long raspberries. He slept standing up. Angela had never seen anything so weird in her life. In the dresser, Arturo dozed as his fists pumped rapidly. He must’ve been dreaming about fighting somebody. Snake hissed in his sleep. He slept under a heaping pile of blankets at the far end of the room. He constantly complained about the room being too cold. Chances were, he was as cold-blooded as his namesake.

Angela’s eyes locked on Ace, asleep on the only sofa in the room. He slept sitting with his hands behind his head. Even asleep, he still tried to remain as cool and composed as always. And yet, he still left his shades on, too. How Angela longed to know what those eyes were like. She adored every little thing about him, from his nasally Italian-New Yorker accent to the way he used Snake as a punching bag. Even down to the fact that he still thought he was cool even though he had a terribly tacky sense of fashion. Seriously, yellow bell-bottoms and an orange and blue vest just don’t match. Angela loved the rush of blood from her heart to hear brain every time she was with him. The feeling excited her. It made her over-the-moon giddy. She had never felt that way about anyone before. She constantly annoyed him only because he was downright cute when he was mad. When he told her that she wasn’t so bad, she could hardly contain her joy. Those words continued to echo over and over in her brain.

Oh yes. This was home for her.

 


	4. Queen of Diamonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the next chapter! Who knows what the Gangrene Gang will do next with Angela on their side? I do not own Powerpuff Girls or any characters except for my OC Angela (I keep wanting to type OCD instead of OC. Possibly because I DO have OCD. lol) I also do not own Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Target, Wal-Mart, or any other place I might’ve mentioned in this chapter. If I did, I’d be a bazillionaire.

“No! That is _not_ how you spell “stupid”!” Angela insisted.

“Yesssss it is!” Snake argued. He was holding a can of dark blue spray paint and had just gotten done spray painting the word “stoopid” all over the brick wall in an ally.

“Bull,” Angela retorted.

“Will you both _stop_ that?” Ace snapped. “Besides, Snake’s right. That _is_ how you spell stupid.”

“You’re both stupid,” Angela snapped.

Meanwhile, Grubber was playing with a party popper. Angela managed to filch a bag of them from a party store earlier that day and now she was seriously starting to regret it, because every chance he got, Grubber set one of them off. Angela hated the popping sound, and every time Grubber set one of them off, she nearly jumped ten feet in the air.

“Oh my God, Grubber, will you _stop_ that?” Angela groaned as Grubber pulled the string on another party popper and blew a very excited raspberry. “God, you’re more annoying than I am, and that’s saying _a_ _lot_!”

“I’ll say it is,” Ace agreed.

Grubber blew a few raspberries in response.

“There are times I think you should just check yourself into a psych ward,” Angela said rolling her eyes. Grubber exploded into a long string of angry raspberries, which took Angela by surprise.

“Oh God,” Angela said. “What did I just do?”

“You reminded him of the time he _was_ thrown in the psych ward,” Lil Arturo said as Grubber curled up on the ground in fetal position and began sucking his dirty, green thumb. Grubber blew a few sad, sniveling raspberries.

“Oh bull shit,” Angela groaned. “I made jokes all day yesterday about how we were acting like we were thrown out of the psych ward and he didn’t get all butt hurt _then_!”

“This is different,” Ace said. “A few years ago, they locked him up in the psych ward promising it would only be for a week. It turned out it was for a whole year. That’s why he can’t really talk. While he was in there, he forgot how.”

“Oh shit,” Angela said, her voice riddled with guilt. She tried to approach Grubber. “Grubber,” she began quietly. “I'm sorry I told you to go check yourself into a psych ward. Will you please get up off the ground now so we can go do something fun?”

Grubber slowly pulled himself off the ground and blew a very long, very slow raspberry.

“He’s notssss mad at youssss,” Snake said.

“Yeah. You just gotta watch what you say is all,” Ace said.

Angela was rightfully confused. In this life that the Gangrene Gang led out on the streets and in the dump, she didn’t think the level of respect amongst themselves would be as high as it was. In fact, the night before when Angela was trying to steal from the sleaze ball, she was shocked that the guys were as concerned for her well-being as they were. In fact, she was so sure that if something _had_ happened to her, they wouldn’t have minded watching. Who knows? Maybe they were only concerned for her safety because if they lost her, they would’ve lost one damn-good thief.

“So now whaddyas wanna do?” Ace asked.

“Billy hungry!” Big Billy bellowed eagerly.

“Yeah, I'm kinda hungry too,” Arturo agreed.

“Sssssame here,” Snake added.

“How ‘bout Burger King?” Angela suggested. “I'm buyin’.”

“You always do,” Ace pointed out.

“Only because _I'm_ the one who has managed to steal whatever it is we have,” Angela reminded him. “Do I at least get a ‘thank you’ for all my hard work?”

“Thank you, Angie,” Ace said sweetly, his voice dripping with the stain of irony.

“I was _being_ sarcastic,” Angela said.

“So was I,” Ace told her.

When the gang found themselves at Burger King, they were only there for a few minutes when they succeeded in cleaning out the restaurant of every single patron. When the lady at the counter asked to take their order, Grubber grabbed the microphone and belched into it. The lady at the counter shrieked in disgust and in a flash, everyone in the dining room disappeared.

“Just order and _get out_ ,” the lady in the counter told them, trying to mask her horror.

“Aren’t you gonna ask us if we’re ordering here or to-go?” Angela asked sarcastically.

“I told you to _get_ _out_ ,” the lady at the counter repeated.

“Fine. We’ll have six Big Macs and six super-sized orders of fries.” Angela said.

“You can’t _get_ those here. That’s at McDonald’s,” the lady at the counter said.

“Billy want Big Mac!” Big Billy shouted.

“I just said, we don’t _have_ Big Macs,” the lady at the counter insisted.

“Oh, I get it. It’s because my friends are green, isn’t it,” Angela said, pretending to be horribly offended. “I'm gonna sue you for discrimination. This would’ve never happened at Wendy’s!”

“Your order’s ready,” the lady at the counter said, blatantly exasperated with the gang’s antics. “I have six whoppers here with six orders of fries.”Now get out before I call the cops.”

Each of them took a bag containing food. Angela gave the lady at the counter the “I'm watching you” gesture as the guys all laughed.

The guys and Angela sat at one of the tables outside.

“She only said we had to leave,” Ace pointed out. “She ain't never said nothin ‘bout not bein’ allowed to sit outside.”

“Hehehe,” Arturo snickered in his short, staccato laugh. “Good point, Ace.”

Snake and Big Billy were filling out those little comment cards you’re supposed to fill out when you’re at a fast-food restaurant. Snake wrote, “Your food sucks. Screw you. And your mom, too.” while Big Billy wrote in his sloppy handwriting, “HI!”

“Hey, mine came with one of those little cardboard crowns,” Angela noticed as she reached into her bag. She pulled out the cardboard crown and placed it on her head.

“You look ridiculous,” Ace laughed.

And she did. She was still wearing the clothes she had on when she ran away and the ginormous earrings from the day before when she managed to charm the owner of the jewelry store. The cardboard crown was the cherry on top of the sundae of Angela’s ridiculous randomness.

“I'm the queen of diamonds!” Angela announced. “Fear my freakishly huge diamond earrings!”

“Your highnesssss…” Snake jokingly groveled.

“I got a better idea,” Angela said. “I'm the Gangrene Queen.”

The guys went quiet as they stared at her. She might as well have said “Cheese and monkeys will take over the world.” Then they burst out laughing.

“Who died and made _you_ queen?” Ace asked as he laughed.

“Considering you guys never had one before, no one. So it’s about damn time,” Angela said as her lips curled up into a flirtatious grin.

Ace didn’t have the heart to correct her. They once _did_ have a queen. He shuddered as he was stricken for a moment by flashbacks of Seduca, the rewards she guaranteed them for their loyalty to her and how she even taught them how to become better thieves. For a very brief period of time, she was more of a mother figure than most of the guys had ever had in their lives. And then she lied to them all, shattering their trust. From then on out, the idea of _any_ sort of female authority figure over him and his friends disgusted Ace. But there was nothing at all about this girl that was anything like an authority figure. After all, she was a genius one moment and a dipshit the next. One moment, she was using her wide-eyed innocence to get what she wanted, and the next she was annoying everyone around her.

“Come on,” Angela said coyly, trying to snap Ace out of his trance. “You _know_ I was just kidding!” She winked at him and giggled. There was that annoying laugh again. That’s when Ace knew for sure that Angie was absolutely harmless. There wouldn’t be any harm in humoring her childish antics.

“All righty, my queen,” he said. It was difficult to allow those words to pass his lips after he and his friends all got burned the last time. “We are ya humble servants. Whaddya want us to do first?”

“Hmmm,” Angela said thoughtfully. “I say we go to Wal-Mart and do as many annoying things as we can until we get thrown out!”

And so they did.

At Wal-Mart, Grubber got on one of those little merry-go-rounds that are meant for toddlers. He put a quarter in the machine and began blowing very happy raspberries as the merry-go-round made its musical rotation.

“All right. Go nuts,” Angela said as complete and utter chaos broke loose in the Wal-Mart, shoppers looking absolutely horrified at the green hooligans and their pale-skinned female accomplice. Angela walked up to the customer service desk.

“Can I help you?” The guy at the desk asked.

“Yes, I’d like to order a Big Mac,” Angela said.

“You can go to the McDonald’s that’s right inside this store,” he replied with a gracious smile.

“Can I get fries with that?” Angela asked, ignoring the customer service rep.

“Did you not hear me?” He asked, trying to be patient. “I said there’s a McDonald’s within this store.”

“I get it, it’s because my friends are all green, isn’t it?” Angela asked in mock fury. “That’s discrimination. I'm gonna sue you. This would’ve never happened at Target!” Angela stormed away.

An employee walked up to her and asked if she needed help finding anything.

“Why can’t you all just _leave_ me alone?!” Angela asked, pretending to be absolutely annoyed. She stomped away.

Meanwhile, random chaos ensued throughout the store. An employee came up to Big Billy and asked him politely if he needed help finding anything.

“I like Twinkies,” he said in his slow, excited manner.

“Twinkies are in the grocery section at the other end of the store on aisle twelve,” the employee replied. Billy just sat there, completely perplexed as to what the employee just said.

“I like Twinkies,” he repeated. The employee looked very confused.

“Why don’t I take you there myself?” The employee suggested.

The employee led Big Billy to the aisle where the Twinkies were. Big Billy took a box of Twinkies off the shelf and tore it open. He devoured all of its contents without even removing the wrappers.

“You can’t _do_ that! I'm gonna have to call security!” The shocked employee cried. Billy merely belched in response and attempted to find the frozen food section. Once he was there, he parked himself in front of the ice cream section and began eating all of the ice cream. A few moments later, he yelled, “Brain Freeze!”

Snake found his own ways of annoying people. He would attempt to hide in very, very large gym bags and then jump out and scare people. Someone had even run away screaming in horror and thus abandoned their shopping cart. Snake jumped out of the gym bag and began riding the shopping cart away like a scooter. When that got old, he left the cart in a random place and began filling it with all sorts of items. An employee walked by him and asked if he needed any help finding anything.

“Do youssss sell wallssss here?” Snake asked.

“No, I'm sorry sir, we don’t sell walls here,” said the slightly freaked-out employee.

“I thought this wassss Wall-Mart,” Snake said in sarcastic disappointment. He kicked the employee in the shins and said, “What a rip-off.”

Over at the checkout stands, Ace attempted to annoy a cashier by saying, “Wow! It’s just like magic!” in mock amazement every time an item was scanned. “How do you do that, Mother Load?”

“Um, what did you call me?” Asked the teenaged, zit-faced cashier as he scanned a pair of pajama bottoms. 

Ace punched the cashier in the gut and yelled, “I just hit the mother load!” The zit-faced teen hobbled away in pain. Ace turned on the microphone and yelled, “Attention everyone! The world is gonna end in one hour! That means everything in the store must go!”  

The entire store broke out into frenzy as shoppers began stuffing random items into their carts and running out the door.

Lil Arturo hid in a clothes rack and yelled, “Pick me! Pick me!” to every person who happened to pass by. Most of them ran away screaming that the store was haunted. However, when Arturo tried it when a schizophrenic walked by, the schizophrenic had a panic attack and began screaming that the voices were taunting him.

Speaking of voices, every time an announcement came on, Angela would fall to the floor screaming, “HELP! IT’S THE VOICES AGAIN!” Angela had just gotten out of the automotive section and tied two oil funnels to her chest. She walked up to the register where Ace was making all sorts of weird announcements. She grabbed the microphone from him.

“Hey!” He snapped. “Get your own register!”

Angela ignored him and began singing into the microphone to the tune of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”:

_I'm not a virgin!_

_I’ve been touched for the thirty-first time!_

_I'm not a vuuuuhrgin!_

When that got old, Angela and Ace decided to set up a tent in the camping department. They hid inside. Snake happened to be wandering by after he got done throwing things in random aisles. He stared at the perfectly-made tent in the middle of the aisle.

“What’s the password?” Angela asked in a sinister voice.

“Who said that?” Snake asked, doing a double-take to find the source of the voice.

“In here!” Ace said. “We’ll let you in if you bring pillows and stuff like that.”

“Ooh, ooh, and bring some magazines so we can build a bonfire!” Angela suggested.

“And marshmallows!” Ace added. “We gotta have marshmallows!”

“Hold it right there. You’re not going anywhere,” said a Wal-Mart rent-a-cop as he grabbed Snake by the ear. The rent-a-cop happened to have Lil Arturo and Big Billy with him. “You and your buddies have caused a lot of trouble here today, and it’s not gonna happen anymore. You’re banned from this store.”

Ace and Angela popped out of the tent. The cop wouldn’t let go of Snake’s ear no matter how much Snake protested. Arturo looked pissed and Big Billy’s skin was tinged with blue rather than its usual shade of green. He was shivering.

“What’s his problem?” Ace asked.

“He got scared of an oncoming shopping cart and thought it would be a good idea to hide in the freezer,” the cop explained briefly. “Now get out or I'm putting you all away!”

“Wait, how’s that possible?” Angela asked. “Do you have a badge?”

The rent-a-cop didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he said, “No, but get out of the store or I will find someone who does.”

Outside of the Wal-Mart, Angela and the gang attempted to look for Grubber.

“Weird,” Angela said. “I woulda thought he woulda stayed on the merry-go-round or something.”

“Hey guys! Look at this!” Arturo cried, pointing to a sign that read “Valet Parking. $20”.

“What the hell?” Ace asked.

Driving by in a shiny red convertible, Grubber sat at the driver’s seat as he blew a raspberry in greeting.

“Nice ride, Grubber!” Ace said. “Is that what you did the whole time?”

Grubber blew a raspberry.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Ace said, grinning. Grubber wasn’t all that bright, but every so-often, he had his moments of absolute genius. Setting up a fake valet parking in front of the Wal-Mart was one of those moments. “I call shotgun!”

“You suck!” Angela cried.

The gang climbed into the car as Grubber drove off into the autumnal afternoon, down the streets of Townsville. He honked the horn a few times.

“Why doessss the horn play ‘La Cucaracha’?” Snake wanted to know.

“I'm not complaining,” Arturo replied as he attempted to sing along with the tune that the horn blurted out. Angela began to sing with him.

Ace rolled his eyes at them as he stared out at the world passing him by like a flash. However, no matter how annoying Angela was, he had to give her credit for one thing: that was the most fun he’d had in a long time. 


	5. Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own the Powerpuff Girls. I do not own “Conga” by Miami Sound Machine. And since I’m going to try and sneak a few modern songs inhere even though Powerpuff Girls came out in the late 90’s, I don’t own “Lonely Boy” or “Howlin’ for You” by The Black Keys. I also do not own the “Get a Job” song. That’s property of Larry the Cable Guy. Enjoy!

Back at the shack at the dump, the Gangrene Gang and Angela were trying to decide what they should do that night after the infamous Wal-Mart adventure. But first, Lil Arturo decided that he needed to borrow money from Angela.

“Can I borrow a hundred dollars, Angie?” Arturo asked.

“Aww, of course you can!” Angela said as she handed him the money. “What for?”

“I can’t tell you yet, and I probably won’t ever be able to pay you back,” Arturo admitted. “But I promise you guys are really gonna like it!”

“Good enough for me,” Angela said as she handed Lil Arturo a crisp hundred dollar bill. “Have fun!” Angela was easily suckered in by Lil Arturo’s small stature and heavy Hispanic accent and thought he was just the most adorable thing ever.

“Yeah, Angie, I need twenty bucks,” Ace said.           

Angela, much to Ace’s extreme irritation, burst out in song:

 

_Get a job you bum, bum, bum, bum_

_Money don’t grow on trees you bum, bum, bum, bum_

“What?!” He asked. “Come on! You gave Arturo money!”

“Fine,” Angela giggled as Ace groaned in annoyance. God, Angela loved how cute he was when he was annoyed with her. “How much do you want?”

“I need twenty dollars,” Ace said. “I wanna turn it into quarters so we can go to the arcade.”

“All right,” Angela said laughing as she handed over the money. “You wanna go right now?”

“We can’tssss,” Snake hissed in disappointment. “It’s closed for the night.”

“That’s right,” Angela said. “I forgot how much this town sucks and how nothing stays open all night except for the pizza place. Where I used to live, there was all sorts of good stuff to do late at night.” She stopped and realized what she just said.

“Where did you live?” Arturo asked.

“Nowhere that would be of interest to any of you, but still better than this lame-ass place,” Angela said. They didn’t ask her any more questions, which was good enough for her.

“Billy wanna dance!” Big Billy bellowed happily. He waddled over to the speaker system (like the one in Buttercrush) and put in a CD as “Lonely Boy” by the Black Keys began to play. Big Billy began swaying from side to side and stomping his feet in a lively manner as the floor began to shake.

The others stared at him as though he’d lost it until Grubber got up and started waving his noodle-like arms about. Finally, Angela said, “Why not? It’s not like there’s anything else to do here.” She got up and began dancing alongside Big Billy as the others eventually joined in. Snake got on the floor and began doing the worm and Ace started playing a mean air-guitar solo.

They danced for several more songs and Angela even convinced everyone to do a conga line with her when “Conga” by Miami Sound Machine blasted through the speakers. The track changed a few moments later to “Howlin’ for You”. Everyone stopped for a moment.

“Aw, come on, this song’s too slow! We can’t dance to this!”Ace protested.

“You can’t,”Angela said coyly. “But I can!”

In the last few days, Angela was very thankful that she had to learn ballet and ballroom dance when she went to charm school. She stuck out like a sore thumb in her bright purple leotard while all the other girls wore pastel pink or blue and she had to listen to her crazy German ballet teacher tell her how much her form sucked. Sometimes she’d get smacked with a cane if she didn’t execute a move in just the precise way. She moved quickly and gracefully to the beat of the music, just the way her speed and finesse allowed her to shoplift and pick pockets without getting caught. The entire time she danced, she never took her eyes off of Ace.

And although she’d never know it because his eyes hid behind his shades, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her either.

Afterwards, all the guys applauded.

“Where’d youssss learn to move like that?” Asked Snake in amazement.

“No particular place that would interest you,” Angela said discreetly.

Ace was at a loss for words, but he couldn’t take the grin off his face. Angie might’ve annoyed him to no end, but one thing was for sure, she knew how to use her body and use it well. He was beginning to feel strangely uncomfortable when he realized that this was _Angie_ , and of course he quickly snapped out of it.

“I’m bored,” Angela said. “We should go do something else now.”

“Billy wanna dance,” Big Billy protested long after the speakers were turned off. He began to sway from side to side even though there was no music playing. But he went ignored.

“Like what?” Arturo wanted to know.

“The radio in the convertible Grubber sssstole yesterday doesn’t have a radio,” Snake pointed out. “We should get that fixed soon.”

“How’s about tonight?” Ace suggested deviously.

“To the Gangrene mobile! Away!” Angela cried.

They piled into the convertible. Ace decided to drive that time despite Grubber blowing raspberries in protest. Maybe he should’ve let Grubber drive because Ace kept swerving off the road and onto the sidewalks, barely missing the lampposts, and knocking over trashcans. Finally, he stopped on a dark street corner where someone left their car parked under a lonely-looking streetlight.

“What do we do here, Boss?” Big Billy asked slowly.

“Arturo’s the master at this kinda thing,” Ace said. “We let him do it.”

“Do what?” Angela asked.

“Shh!” Ace hissed. “Not so loud!”

 “Sorry,” Angela said as she lowered her voice.

“Arturo’s the best at jacking car radios,” Ace told her. “We wait here while he does all the work. Sometimes Grubber goes with him to keep an eye out for anyone who might catch us while we hide in the alley.”

“Can I go with Arturo?” Angela asked. “I wanna learn how to do it.”

Ace looked at Angie and the eagerness in her wide, brown eyes.

“You sure?” Ace asked. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

“Psh, I just wanna watch is all, just this once,” Angela assured him.

“All right, it’s all on yous guys,” Ace said as he turned Angela, Arturo, and Grubber loose while he, Snake, and Big Billy hid in the alley. They watched everything unfold carefully.

Grubber quietly got on top of the car. He took out a baseball bat and began smashing the windshield, creating a hole just big enough for Arturo to crawl through. Arturo took a quick second to thank his maker for his small stature before sliding over to the passenger’s side and unlocking the front door.

“Angie, get in,” he whispered as he motioned for her to come over.

Angela climbed into the car quietly as Arturo took out a pair of pliers. He tried detaching the radio until it came loose, only attached to the rest of the car by bunches of wires. Angela watched with wide eyes as Arturo began carefully cutting the wires.

“I wanna try that,” Angela whispered in amusement.

Arturo looked at her as though she were crazy. This was always _his_ job and to give it to someone he’d only known for a few days? Angie was a pretty good thief, but could she steal a car radio and do it right?

“Watch me do this wire and I’ll let you cut the last one,” he said. “Be careful though. If you hit it in the wrong spot, the radio won’t work.”

He reluctantly handed over the pliers to Angela. She carefully clamped down on the last wire and that’s the last thing she remembered when everything went black.

Arturo immediately began to panic. He jumped out of the car with the radio as Grubber blew a concerned raspberry.

“Oh man, this is bad,” Arturo panicked, trying to keep his voice down. “I dunno what happened, she just cut the wire and it shocked her. How does that even _happen_?” Grubber blew a raspberry as though agreeing with Arturo.

Arturo looked up and noticed a familiar streak of pastel pink, blue and green. He panicked even more.

“We gotta get outta here, Grubber!” Arturo cried. Grubber blew another agreement raspberry. They raced off, leaving Angela lying in a crumpled heap in the car.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup landed near the car with the smashed windshield, disappointed to find anyone at the scene at the crime.

“There’s nothing here,” Bubbles pointed out.

“Maybe there’s a clue inside the car,” Blossom suggested. She threw the door of the car open and found a scraggly-looking teenager in flashy clothes lying there unconscious. She gasped.

“What is it?” Bubbles asked.

“It looks like someone tried to steal a car radio,” Blossom said.

“I didn’t know people _did_ that anymore!” Buttercup cried.

“And something tells me this girl knows a thing or two about what happened here,” Blossom said.

“You think _she_ did it?” Buttercup asked.

“I'm not sure,” Blossom said. “Maybe she was with someone who did do it.” She tried getting the girl to respond. “Hello?” She went into the car and took the girl’s pulse. “She’s unconscious, but her pulse seems normal, so there’s no reason to just rush her over to the emergency room.”

“What do we do?” Bubbles asked.

“I say she’s faking it,” Buttercup suggested skeptically. “She probably broke into this car and is probably playing dead so that we won’t think she did it.”

“Innocent until proven guilty, Buttercup,” Blossom reminded her. “Luckily, I know some first aid. Let’s take her back home and see if her condition improves overnight. And then she can tell us her side of the story.”

“Blossom, I know everyone says you’re the smart one, but this is an incredibly stupid idea,” Buttercup said. “What will the professor say?”

“Maybe he can help us figure out what happened to her!” Bubbles cried. “Besides, she’ll be our new best friend and we can ask the professor if she can stay and play with us!”

 “Bubbles, this isn’t like one of your stray pets,” Blossom said sternly. “As soon as she recovers and tells us what happened here, we have to let her go.”

“What if she has nowhere to go?” Bubbles asked sadly, thinking of the horror of what it would be like if this girl had no family.

“We don’t know that yet,” Blossom said. “Now come on, let’s get her home.”

They carefully lifted the teenage girl out of the car and flew off with her into the night. The Gangrene Gang cautiously crept out of the alley. They were shocked with what just happened and just stood there in silence.

“Angie gone,” was all Big Billy would say.

“What was _that_?”  Ace asked Arturo.

“Angie said she wanted to cut the last wire!” Arturo said defensively. “So I let her do it and she got shocked. How’s that even possible?”

“You couldn’t have just taken her with you?” Ace asked furiously.

“There wasn’t any time! Grubber and I saw the Powerpuff Girls coming!” Arturo cried. Grubber blew a raspberry as though trying to beg Ace for forgiveness. Ace merely smacked the both of them.

“If she wakesssss up,” Snake said, “Do you think she’ll rat ussss out?”

Ace didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “Come on guys. Let’s go home.”

They piled into the car. This time, Grubber drove the gang back to the dump. The entire time, Arturo and Snake were arguing over whether or not the radio they stole would work in this car, but Ace was too furious to care.

 


	6. Ace of Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Angela missing, will Ace have a change of heart? Or will he revert back to his old ways? Will Angela's true identity be revealed? Find out in this chapter!

Ace couldn’t sleep at all that night. His eyes looked closed behind his shades, but tonight he was wide awake as the light of the moon softly illuminated through the cracks in the ceiling. Normally, he would be able to drown out the sound of Big Billy’s incessant snoring (which always sounded like someone ripping a really nasty fart for some weird reason). He tried to make himself comfortable on the couch.

Something was missing. How was it that Angie hadn’t even been part of their gang for a few days and yet he wasn’t used to seeing an empty space in the middle of the room where she slept?

He wasn’t worried about Angie; she was tough. She would figure out how to find her way back to the dump eventually. And if she didn’t?

Well that wasn’t hard. Ace would just find another really, really good thief to replace her. That wouldn’t be hard at all. No way.

Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be easy. But did he really want to replace her though?

Ace thought about Angie and the way her antics drove him up the wall, how she would burst out in song at random moments and how she could never, ever sit still. And yet, despite being a hyper little ball of energy, she was always the first one asleep every night. That was why the room looked so empty without her.

He spent most of his life convinced that he didn’t have a heart. So what was this strange feeling? It wasn’t like earlier when he was watching her dance. Nah. He’d seen plenty of hot girls before. That was nothing new. This was different. And whatever it was, it swallowed him whole. There was no escape from it.

Ace knew where she was. And he wished she was with him.

 _Snap out of it, man,_ Ace told himself. _You didn’t need nobody before and you don’t need nobody now. Especially not some girl._

Ace smiled to himself at that last thought, widely enough so that his fangs stuck out. With that, he fell asleep.

The next afternoon, Angela rubbed her aching head as she opened her eyes to a strange and unfamiliar place. She panicked for a moment. Where was she?  She threw a fluffy white throw blanket off of her as she bolted upright.

She was in the living room of a middle-class home and she’d been sleeping on the leather sofa for so long that her body made an indent.

 How far away from the dump was she? Her body went rigid and icy with fear as she began to hyperventilate.

“Let’s go see if she woke up,” Angela heard a voice say. It belonged to a young girl.

“Yay!” Chirped a squeaky female voice. Somehow, they didn’t sound too unfamiliar to Angela. What was going on? How could this get any weirder?

Her question was answered when three little girls in matching dresses of pink and blue and green stood in front of her. Their big pastel eyes studied her carefully and suspiciously.

“Oh my God!” Angela cried. “This _has_ to be a dream! I'm in the house of the Powerpuff Girls!”

Bubbles giggled.

“Well, it seems the patient made a full recovery,” Blossom observed smiling. “Looks like my first aid training came in handy!”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Buttercup said as she rolled her big, green eyes. She hated when her sister put on airs.

Angela loved the Powerpuff Girls. She knew all about their awesome deeds whether it was from the news or from Princess. How exciting it must be to fly around all day and have really awesome super powers. Angela wanted to meet them when she found out they were living in Cityville for a little while, but unfortunately she was stuck in a lovely little prison called boarding school.

“You guys rock!” Angela said. “I’ve heard all about you on the news and in the papers and stuff and so it’s really badass to finally meet you! But can I ask one question?” Angela asked.

“Go ahead!” Blossom invited. “Because we were hoping you could answer a few questions for us, too.”

Angela remembered the last thing that happened before she blacked out. A jarring, painful shock went through her body. Before that, Arturo told her she could cut the final wire. Surely, they were going to ask what she was doing in the car. She had to think of something quickly.

“What happened to me? How’d you find me?” She asked.

“Someone called the hotline saying that they saw someone trying to break into a car,” Buttercup explained impatiently. “ _You_ wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, _would you_?” She asked suspiciously. “Was the baseball bat we found at the scene _yours_?”

“Buttercup!” Blossom scolded.

“Well,” Angela said. From there, the lies began spilling out like word vomit, “I had a friend drive me home. Suddenly, our car was jacked. They wanted the radio. My friend got away, but I couldn’t. They took the radio and they beat me with the baseball bat until I collapsed. That was the last thing I remember.”

“What do you mean by _they_?” Bubbles wondered.

“These two big guys,” Angela said. “They were huge, like they could’ve been in a strongman competition. They had scraggly beards and they were bald. They smelled like they hadn’t showered in a year.”

“I'm so sorry,” Blossom said sympathetically. “We’ll go to the cops. They’ll work with us to find whoever did this to you.”

Buttercup’s eyes narrowed in on Angela, not leaving her for a moment.

“By the way, what’s your name?” Bubbles asked.

“You can call me Angie,” Angela replied.

“Ugh, let’s just watch some TV,” Buttercup said rolling her eyes. She and the girls sat on the couch next to Angela as Buttercup grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV where the news was on featuring the news anchor that talks like Sean Connery.

“Hey, maybe they’ll show the monster we fought on the way to school!” Blossom cried.

“And in other news,” the news anchor said, launching into another story, “Fourteen year old Angela Morbucks has been missing for three days. The teen was visiting with her uncle, billionaire Mr. Morbucks and her cousin, super-villainess Princess Morbucks when she escaped from her room on Saturday night without a trace. Anyone who has any information on her whereabouts is to contact Mr. Morbucks immediately. A reward will be issued upon her return. She can be identified by a heart-shaped birthmark at the base of her neck.

The news showed an old photo of Angela with her old long, curly hairstyle. Her heart began to beat faster with fear. If they asked for a birthmark, she’d be screwed and her joyride would come to an end. She would be forced to return to her mundane world of the prim and proper.

“Holy cow! Princess has a _cousin_?” Blossom asked incredulously.

“Who is this _Princess?_ ” Angela inquired. It was the only thing she could think of to ask.

“Only the most annoying, spoiled idiot ever!” Buttercup groaned. “She is a _colossal_ idiot. She is so stupid that she…”

“Buttercup!” Blossom interrupted. “Princess was new here. She moved here a little while ago and decided she wanted to be one of us. We told her we don’t allow new members because it’s too dangerous and she would only get in the way. Of course, she just _had_ to have her way.”

“It _was_ kinda funny,” Bubbles admitted. “She bought all these super suits to try and be a superhero, but they didn’t really help.”

“Maybe she just wanted to feel included,” Angela said. This sounded like her cousin, all right. “After all, some people seem totally mean on the outside, but once you include them, they’re really, really cool!”

“We tried that!” Bubbles cried. “On the first day of school, we asked if she wanted to play with us, but she acted like a stuck-up jerk!”

“There’s nothing good about her,” Buttercup said. “She slowed us down when we could’ve easily stopped that bank robbery without her, she ganged up with Mojo Jojo to get rid of us, and she almost ruined Christmas for everybody.”

“Are you sure you should be talking about her like that?” Angela asked. “I mean, you don’t even know her that well.” If there’s one thing she couldn’t tolerate, it was talking _about_ people instead of _to_ them.

“Psh, all we need to know is that she’s some spoiled brat whose daddy gives her everything she wants,” Buttercup groaned as she rolled her eyes. “Who needs her?”

Angela couldn’t believe what she was hearing. As cruel as her cousin was to her and as much as Angela liked playing pranks on her since she was such an easy target, Princess was the little sister Angela never had. Angela loved Princess from the day she entered this world. Besides, it wasn’t Princess’s fault she was so spoiled. She was lonely.

_Angela was engulfed by flashbacks of the divorce two years ago, back when she was twelve and Princess was three. Daddy Morbucks lived in Cityville for a little while. Angela remembered the nights when she would stay up late and hear her parents talking about her uncle’s messy divorce from his wife, Narcissa. Angela would creep out of her cozy bed and tiptoe to the top of the stairs without a sound._

_“I told my brother he was marrying a gold-digger. Did my little bro listen to me? Oh hell no!” Angela remembered her dad’s voice saying. “He said, ‘Narcissa’s a good woman. She’d never do that to me.’ Look what she does! She cheats on him and them tries filing for divorce six months later!”_

_“It’s going to be so hard on Princess, growing up without a mother,” Angela’s mom sighed sadly._

_And it was. While her uncle got custody of Princess, Angela watched Princess grow up without a mother figure in her life. Narcissa never returned. Angela watched her uncle spoil Princess with whatever she wanted. He used to talk a lot before the divorce, telling all sorts of exciting stories of his business ventures and political exploits. But afterwards, he never spoke at all. Instead, he continued to give Princess whatever she wanted. She was the only girl in his life he would ever need to spoil. Sometimes Princess would scream out at night for Mommy. And when she did, Daddy Morbucks gave her whatever she wanted. But she would never have Mommy. Never again._

“Angie, are you okay?” Bubbles asked.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Angela lied. “Just trying to watch the news is all.” Really, she hadn’t been paying any attention to the story on the man selling kittens outside of the grocery store.

“Hey look!” Blossom cried. “We’re on now!”

“This morning, the Powerpuff Girls stopped a gigantic gorgon from causing massive collateral damage in downtown Townsville,” the news anchor said. “The girls were able to take down the creature in under five minutes and they still had time to attend Pokey Oakes Kindergarten where the three of them are honor students.”

“Oh yeah! We’re awesome!” Buttercup boasted.

“It’s all in a day’s work, I suppose,” Blossom said, pretending to be modest. “Anyway, I like to believe there’s _some_ good in all the villains we battle, even Mojo Jojo,” Blossom admitted. “Mojo Jojo was just a neglected monkey. Even the Gangrene Gang has some good to them, even if we can’t see it. Remember the time we saved Big Billy from the oncoming train and he followed us around everywhere until he started ruining everything?”

Angela couldn’t believe this. But this sounded like something that would happen to Billy, all right. She grinned.

“Buttercup might be able to tell you what if there’s anything good about them,” Bubbles giggled.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Buttercup shuddered.

“Oooh! Oooh! I wanna know!” Angela cried out excitedly. This was about to get interesting.

“I wanna tell the story!” Bubbles cried as Buttercup’s forehead met her hand and her face turned bright red. “Buttercup used to have a _huge_ crush on the leader!”

Angela couldn’t help to be but a little jealous. However, she could easily understand why Buttercup would. Angela was wishing she could hear that voice right now and see that wicked grin on his face with his fangs sticking out. She loved the fact that he was unlike anyone else she’d ever met in her life. Oh, and it didn’t hurt that he had a nice ass, either. Angela tried to stop herself from giggling.

“Yeah, until he took advantage of me so he could get rid of my sisters,” Buttercup frowned. “I’ll never trust anyone again.”

Angela couldn’t believe her ears. She felt a sickening notion in her stomach. If he could lead a Powerpuff Girl astray, he could easily take advantage of an ordinary like her. But what would she want with her? So many questions popped up in her brain. So many answers longing to be found.

Luckily, the hotline rang. Blossom answered it. Angela couldn’t help but realize that the face on the hotline phone looked so creepy.

“Girls! Trouble! Move out!” She barked at Bubbles and Buttercup two seconds later.

“I'm sorry we can’t stay,” Bubbles apologized. “We’ll be back when we get done foiling a bank robbery!”

“I have to go too,” Angela said. “I need to get back to my family. I dunno if they miss me. But I sure do miss them.”

Angela may have been lying to those girls that entire time, but this was one thing she had said all day that wasn’t entirely a lie. She had only lived with the Gangrene Gang for three days, but they were the closest she had ever felt to being home. Of course, the girls didn’t hear what she said, because they were gone in an instant in a flash of pink and blue and green.

As Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup zipped through the sky en route to the bank, Bubbles said, “You know, Angie’s a nice girl, but there’s something about her that seems kinda weird.”

“I'm _telling_ you, she’s the one who jacked the radio!” Buttercup insisted.

“I wouldn’t say _that_ much, but there’s something about her story that doesn’t add up,” Blossom said. With that, they crash landed through the roof of the bank and beat the robbers black and blue as the innocent by-standers cheered.

Meanwhile, back at the Townsville Dump, Ace, Snake, Lil Arturo, Grubber, and Big Billy were all sitting around playing poker. As usual, Grubber was winning.

“He always wins,” Arturo said in disappointment as Grubber gathered up whatever the gang placed up as a bet and blew a huge raspberry in triumph.

“Any idea when Angie’s coming back?” Ace asked casually.

“Will you quit asking that already?” Arturo complained.

“That was the first time I asked!” Ace protested.

“Exsss-actly,” Snake said. “You never care when one of _ussss_ goes missing!”

“You thought Big Billy was dead when he ran away to help Powerpuff Girls after they saved Billy from oncoming train,” Big Billy reminded him slowly. Ace was shocked that Billy even remembered that ever happened.

“I just wanted to know, that’s all,” Ace said. “Besides, she owes me money!”

“Actually,” Arturo corrected him, “You owe _her_ money. So do I. Lots of it.”

“Oh yeah. You never told her what you were gonna do with it,” Ace pointed out.

Just then, Angie burst through the door carrying a hot apple pie.

“Honey, I'm _home_!” She cried. “And I brought pie!”

Ace grinned, flashing his fangs. Oh yeah, Angie was back all right.

“What’ssss with the pie?” Snake asked as Angie set the pie down on the table.

“Let’s just say I was doing Professor Utonium a favor by taking this pie off his hands,” Angela explained. “He learned the hard way that if you leave a pie to cool on the windowsill, birds will invade your house.”

A cutaway reveals Professor Utonium chasing blackbirds out of the kitchen with a broomstick while yelling, “Shoo! Shoo you rats with wings! Get out of my kitchen!” The scene then cuts back to the wooden shack at the dump.

“Big Billy likes pie!” Big Billy cried as he took a fistful of pie with his hands and began chowing down.

“Sssssave some for me!” Snake cried.

“Thanks for bringin’ a pie back,” Ace said as the others began scarfing down the pie. “But I gotta ask ya somethin’.”

“Go ahead,” Angela said. Her face began to turn bright red.

“Why’d you bother comin’ back?” Ace asked. “Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“Nowhere that I would _want_ to go back to,” Angela said. “Why? Don’t you guys even want me here?”

“Nah, it ain't that,” Ace told her. “You just don’t seem like the kinda girl that would wanna spend all your time hangin’ out with us is all.”

“Well, whatever it is, my life would be _so_ boring without you guys,” Angela said. She went off to join the others in hopes that there would still be some pie left.

Ace couldn’t help but smile. At least now, the wooden shack would feel a little less empty. 


	7. A Walk in the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gangrene Gang and Angie stir up chaos at the local park!

Nearly two weeks had passed since Angela ran away from Morbucks Mansion. It was the first day of autumn, and on this particularly lovely morning, Angela was the first one awake. She was combing her hair using a comb she found lying around on the table where the gang was playing poker the night before (and predictably, Grubber won, as always). As she attempted to flatten her hair, which was starting to curl back into waves of brown and gold, she began singing at the top of her lungs.

“I gotta pocket, gotta pocket full of sunshine, I got a love and I know that it’s all mine, oh, whoa,” Angela sang, pretending the comb was a microphone.

Lil Arturo came in from the other room and upon seeing Angela using his comb as a microphone, his jaw dropped.

“Maria!” Arturo cried out in horror. No one ever used that comb except for him. He loved it more than anything else he owned. He swiped thee comb from Angela’s possession, noticing strands of her brown and gold hair caught in the teeth. “I'm sorry, Maria,” Arturo whispered affectionately to the comb. “ _Mi corazón, mi amor_ ,” he added. He was about to walk away to go give Maria her daily polish.

“You’re in love with a comb?” Angela asked. “That’s mildly disturbing.”

“You have no respect for other people’s belongings, do you?” Arturo asked, growing annoyed.

“I’ve learned from the best, Shorty,” Angela said as she stuck her tongue out at her.

“Clever, did you think of that one yourself?” Arturo asked in disgust. He was used to people making fun of his size, but it got old quickly.

Ace walked in, an irritated expression on his face.

“Would yous guys keep it _down_?” He asked impatiently. “Some of us like to sleep in!”

“Good morning, hardware store,” Angela greeted in the sardonic manner which she’d grown accustomed to using.

“ _Hardware store_?” Ace asked in deep irritation. “ _Hardware store_?!”

“Yes,” Angela nodded. “How do you go around thinking you’re so cool when you share the same name as a hardware store?”

Ace wanted to slap Angela. But then again, he knew that you just don’t hit a girl. He knew how much of a jerk he was, but that was a level he would never allow himself to sink.

Instead, Ace clocked Arturo on the head.

“What was that for?” Arturo asked. “You’re mad at her, not me!”

“The both of ya need to shut up,” Ace said. “I'm going back to bed.”

“I dunno how you do that,” Angela said. “You’re the only person I know who can sleep until three in the afternoon. Besides, I just had a random thought.”

“Not now,” Ace groaned. “It’s too early for that!” But Arturo was intrigued.

“What’s that?” Arturo wanted to know.

“It’s been two weeks since I became your queen,” Angela pointed out. “And I say we celebrate my jubilee with ice cream on my dime, especially since the word ‘jubilee’ sounds like an ice cream flavor anyway.”

Ace liked that idea. Ice cream on someone else’s dime was always a good idea to him. This was a perfect example to him of how Angie was absolutely annoying, yet impossible to stay mad at.

Forty minutes later, the gang walked out of the Townsville Ice Cream Parlor after completely annoying the guy at the counter who was wishing he had a different job. They jumped into their car and drove off down the road.

Grubber, as usual, drove. Surprisingly, he was the only one who could drive the gang from point A to point B in one piece. Ace could drive, just not in a straight line, Arturo was too short to reach the pedals, and the rest of them couldn’t drive their way out of a paper bag. Ace usually sat shotgun and Arturo sat on Angela’s lap (since there was only room in the convertible for five people) as Angela sat sandwiched between Big Billy and Snake.

“Sssssooo now what do we do?” Snake asked as he ran his forked tongue over his chocolate ice cream cone. Grubber drove past the Townsville Park with one hand on the wheel and the other hand on his double-scoop ice cream cone.

“We could have a little fun at the park,” Ace suggested with a mischievous smirk on his face.

“Oh no,” Arturo protested. “Every time we go to the park, we end up getting our asses kicked.”

“That’sssss why we have a car,” Snake pointed out. “So we can get away if we have to!”

Grubber pulled up at the curb as the Gangrene Gang and their female accomplice hopped out of the convertible. It was one of those sunny fall days where the last breaths of summer were on their way out and the trees were a colorful palate. Families had brought their children to enjoy the playground while the weather was still nice. Of course, the parents had to take one look at the Gangrene Gang and realized that a nice day was too much to ask.

 It took a little under ten seconds for the chaos to unfold. Grubber had pushed a preschooler off one of those little springy horses. He got on and began riding it as the three year old began wailing like a siren.

Arturo and Snake were holding a competition to see who could climb the jungle gym backwards the quickest. They ran up the slide and down the steps, knocking over a bunch of little kids. They laughed as they swung across the monkey bars. Snake’s long, gangly legs touched the ground as he crossed the monkey bars while Arturo’s short arms struggled to reach the next bar.

“Wanna climb the monkey bars!” Big Billy cried excitedly as he jumped up and reached for the bar. Of course, he was so big that he pulled the monkey bars downward. “Oops,” he said slowly, realizing the monkey bars were indented towards the ground under the impact of his size and his grip. “I think they broke.”

Angela sat on a swing trying to make herself go as high as possible. She called Big Billy over.

“Billy! Come on! Gimme a boost!” Angela cried.

“Okay!” Big Billy cried eagerly. With all of his might, he pushed Angela so that she swung over the bar several times. She screamed at the top of her lungs like she was on the biggest rollercoaster in the amusement park, adrenaline all the way.

“OH YEAH BABY!” Angela cried. She didn’t realize the impact was so great that some of the other kids on the swings fell off.

Ace went over to the merry-go-round where some kids were already playing.

“Hey kids,” he began in his usual mock charm we all know and love, “you want me to make this thing go faster?” The kids looked to be no older than six, and they all looked up at the teenager in terror.

Ace swung the merry-go-round so fast that it became a colorful blur. When the vicious cycle from hell finally stopped spinning, the kids all hobbled off the merry-go-round, most of them vomiting in the bushes.

“I can’t believe this,” fumed a morbidly obese woman as her child ran over to her, crying in fear. “Don’t those kids realize that they’re too big to be playing on the playground?”

“And don’t _you_ realize that you’re too big for a park bench?” Angela pointed out. She was still dizzy from her joyride on the swings.

Angela realized that this was probably the meanest thing she had ever said to anyone in her life. She wasn’t used to talking crap, just pulling pranks on people. But Ace came over and high-fived her.

“Nice!” Ace said approvingly. Angela didn’t like being intentionally nasty, but she would do anything for Ace’s words of praise.

The morbidly obese woman whipped out her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1 with her sausage-like fingers. Angela wandered off into the bushes where she hurled up swirls of mint and strawberry.

Sirens from up the road wailed, growing louder and louder.

“Oh, you boys are asking for it,” the morbidly obese woman threatened. “The cops are gonna put you away for a _long_ time.”

“Uh-oh,” Ace said. “Let’s get outta here!”

The Gangrene Gang jumped into the convertible as Grubber put his foot on the gas. They sped off down the road with the police hot on their trail. The morbidly obese woman walked away with her child and Angela finally came out from behind the bushes. She glanced around, realizing that the gang left her behind. She shrugged her shoulders. She had a pretty good idea of where to find them, and so she didn’t worry.

Meanwhile, the police were hot on the pursuit of the Gangrene Gang.

“Man, can’t you go any faster?!” Ace demanded as Grubber blew a panicked raspberry. “What?!” Ace panicked. “The breaks are shot?!”

“We’re all gonna die!” Arturo cried.

“Big Billy no wanna die!” Billy blubbered.

“Look out for thosssse guysss!” Snake cried as Grubber sped past a marching band. Apparently there was a parade in Townsville to celebrate the first day of fall.

“How does this get any worse?!” Ace asked in frustration and horror.

Grubber tried honking the horn in desperation, but to his dismay, the horn didn’t work.

“The horn’s not working either?!” Ace groaned. “It’s because you kept playing it for Arturo and Angie’s sick amusement!”

“Speaking of Angie, we forgot her!” Arturo pointed out. No wonder there was more room in the convertible and he didn’t have to sit on Angie’s lap.

“Sssssomeone call 9-1-1!” Snake suggested. “We’re gonna crash!”

“You idiot!” Ace snapped as he turned around. He reached back and socked Snake in the face. “Who do you think is chasing us?!”

“Honk! Honk!” Big Billy yelled. “Get out of the way! Honk! Honk!”

“What are you _doing_?” Arturo asked.

“Big Billy wants to be the horn!” Billy cried. “We gots no horn, so Big Billy wants to be the horn!”

Suddenly, the car stopped moving. Instead, it was levitating. Ace looked over the side and noticed the police cars were coming to a stop. Someone was lifting them up.

“It’s the Powerpuff Girls!” Arturo cried. He had been looking over the side as well. “They saved us from crashing!”

“Yeah, and now we’re gonna make sure you’re locked up where you belonged!” Blossom declared. She, Bubbles, and Buttercup dropped the convertible as it came crashing down on the pavement. If that didn’t hurt enough, the Gangrene Gang found themselves beaten to a bloody pulp by the girls as they lay in a heap on ground. Ace moaned in pain and realized that getting his ass kicked by three kindergarteners was more and more humiliating each time around.

“We’ll take it from here, girls,” said the police chief. “Good work!”

“Not a problem!” Blossom said. “We do what we can to protect the good people of Townsville from creepers like these guys. Come on girls,” she said to her sisters. “Let’s go home!”

The Powerpuff Girls took to the skies leaving their signature colored streak behind them. The cops attempted to put all five gang members in handcuffs. Lil Arturo tried to use whatever strength he had left to get away, but the cops handcuffed him. They had already handcuffed Big Billy who was crying about not wanting to go to jail.

“Please, we can explain!” Ace begged as the officer handcuffed him.

“Don’t even try it,” the officer said. “You boys are going away for a _long_ time!”

Meanwhile, Angela was still up the road on her way to the Townsville County Jail. That was the first place she thought to look for the rest of the gang. Suddenly, she heard music playing from behind her. She turned around and noticed the marching band playing in Townsville’s fall parade. For now, she would just take her sweet ol’ time in getting to the jail. As the marching band played, she sang along and danced on the sidewalk while people stopped and stared.

_Who’s peeking out from under the stairway_

_Calling the name that’s lighter than air_

_Who’s bending down to give me the rainbow_

_Everyone knows it’s Angie_

_Who’s trippin’ down the streets of the city_

_Smilin’ at everybody she sees_

_Who’s reaching out to capture the moment_

_Everyone knows it’s Angie_

Angela finally arrived at the jail. She walked inside where the warden sat at his desk, staring her up and down.

“What do you want, girlie?” He asked. “Visiting hours are over.”

“I'm looking for my friends,” Angela said. “I'm looking for five green guys,” she added, not knowing how else to describe them.

“Ain't you got ears?” The warden asked. “This ain't a freakin’ tea party. Visiting hours are over! Go home and come back tomorrow.”

Angela sighed. “Maybe you misunderstood me,” she said. She reached between her cleavage and pulled out several hundred dollar bills. The warden’s eyes widened. “I'm not visiting. I'm here to bail out my friends.”

“That _does_ make a difference,” the warden said as he pocketed the money. “Follow me,” he said as he grabbed a big, bulky set of keys and led Angela behind a huge metal door and down a cold hallway past criminals sitting in their jail cells. Some stared at Angela as though she were an alien, and others stared down at the floor as though they’d given up. The set of keys jangled and clank with every step, the criminals in the cells wondering if that sound would mean freedom. Angela felt a chill run up her spine. She had a difficult time believing that her little cousin had spent a little time in this place.

“Those are the guys,” Angela said as she pointed to the cell at the end of the hallway. The Gangrene Gang rested in a heap on the ground, still reeling from their recent beating.

“This little lady just paid your bail,” the warden said as he unlocked the cell. “You’re free to go.”

“That was fast,” Ace said. “How long were we in here for?”

“A little under two hours,” the warden said. “Now go home.”

“Thankssss for doing that,” Snake said to Angela. “Ssssorry we have to walk home. We lost our car.”

As the gang left the jail, Ace realized that there were a lot of advantages to having Angie around. He didn’t recall ever spending only two hours in a jail cell. One of these days, he would have to do something to thank her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: By now, you are probably wondering where my inspiration for Angela came from. I came up with the idea of a female addition to the Gangrene Gang when I was eight years old. Back then, I had a very specific idea of what I would be like as a teenager. Of course, I turned out to be nothing like Angela (except for the incessant restlessness) which is probably a good thing. Angela’s name comes from a girl who was in my English class last semester who I found somewhat irritating, but also very kind. Angela is also a play on the word “angel” which is supposed to be a stark contrast to Angela’s personality.


	8. Power Lunch: Take 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this clever parody of the popular episode "Power Lunch" the Gangrene Gang and Angie get super powers! What chaos will ensue when they parade through Townsville with their new abilities?

A little over a week after the infamous incident at the park went by and much to the delight of every crook, criminal, and bad guy in Townsville, the Powerpuff Girls were out of the state for the weekend because Professor Utonium was visiting his parents and decided to bring the girls with him. Everyone knew that whenever the Powerpuff Girls were away, crime rates went through the roof. The Gangrene Gang and Angela walked the streets of Townsville that day wondering what mayhem and chaos they could cause. After all, while the cats were away, the mice would play.

Of course, Ace knew that nothing was going to get done if Angie, Big Billy, Lil Arturo, Snake, and Grubber wouldn’t quit skipping and singing up and down the sidewalks, leaving big gaping holes in their wake thanks to Big Billy’s size.

“Weee’re off to see the wizard! The wonderful wizard of Oz! He kindly is a wiz of a wiz there ever oh is there was. If ever oh ever a wiz there was…” they sang before Big Billy cut them off interrupting loudly, “I gotta wiz!”

They stopped skipping and Angela groaned, “Can’t you hold it in?”

There was silence for a moment before Billy said, “Never mind. I don’t gotta wiz no more.”

“Ew,” Angela said quickly before changing the subject. “Okay, so what should we do?”

“Wessss could go around giving people wedgiessss,” Snake suggested.

“Nah, we did that yesterday,” Ace reminded him.

“Oooh! The circus is in town!” Arturo cried excitedly. “We could sneak in and make fun of the albino knife thrower and the bearded lady!”

“No thankssss,” Snake said uneasily. “The ssssircussss makessss me nervoussss.” Snake hissed a lot more when he was feeling anxious, and any mention of the circus did just that.

“We could go to the park and play four-square using Lil Arturo as the ball,” Angela proposed.

“Why do you always gotta pick on me, Angie?” Arturo asked.

“I only pick on my favorites,” Angela said sardonically.

“You never pick on Big Billy,” Billy reminded her. “Is Big Billy _not_ your favorite?”

“Shut up!” Ace interrupted. “Let’s think of somethin’ to do instead of wasting time!” 

Grubber blew a raspberry as though throwing in a suggestion. Angela still couldn’t understand Grubber, but Ace merely waved off Grubber’s idea.

“Nah, we don’t have the car anymore, so that would never work,” Ace said. Angela would never know what Grubber was suggesting, but it was probably a great idea.

“We could rob the convenience store like we did that one time and get superpowers!” Arturo eagerly suggested.

“Yeah, but we need the Powerpuff Girls to hit us with the lasers,” Ace reminded him. “Besides, it only lasts until we hafta take a dump.”

Angela was intrigued.

“Superpowers?” Angela inquired.

Ace told her the story of when they tied up the convenience store clerk at the Circle J and began devouring everything in the store. When the Powerpuff Girls chased them down, they shot the Gangrene Gang with their laser vision causing something very weird to happen.  

Of course, Angela was only half paying attention while Ace was talking to her. Instead, she was smiling and nodding as she lost herself in wondering what his eyes were like.

“Well,” Angela said slyly, “if you _really_ need a laser, I think I have something that _might_ work just as well.”

Angela reached down her tube top and pulled out a laser gun. Ace wasn’t sure which was more impressive: how she was able to get something like that in the first place, or how she was able to store so much down there when she wasn’t very well-endowed above the waist.

“Whoa!” Snake gasped. “Where’d youssss find that?”

“Let’s just say that I was able to steal from a certain evil monkey,” Angela told them discreetly.

Of course, that was only half true. Angela didn’t steal from Mojo Jojo. A cutaway shows Angela knocking on Mojo Jojo’s door and asking him if he had any weapons he didn’t want anymore.

“It’s probably not the same kind of laser, but I think it should work,” Angela said. “And if it does, it’ll be awesome sauce.”

“Mmmmmm, Big Billy likes sauce!” Big Billy said as he smacked his lips loudly.

“So what are we’s waitin’ for?” Ace asked getting excited. “Let’s go!”

Luckily, at the Circle J, the clerk wasn’t the same guy that the Gangrene Gang beat up and tied up before the first time they tried this. It was a newer, younger worker that probably hadn’t been working at Circle J for very long, so it was very easy to beat him up and duct tape him to the wall. Angela stuffed a donut in the clerk’s mouth as a makeshift gag.

“What’d you do that for?” Ace asked. “We coulda just used the duct tape!”

“I thought, you know, maybe he’d get hungry watching us empty the contents of this store,” Angela said as she shrugged her shoulders. Ace smacked his forehead before making a beeline for the slushy machine. Angela cracked open a box of Red Hots. Two seconds later, she could hear Ace yelling in pain over at the slushy machine. She looked over at him and tried to stop herself from laughing.

“Psh, I never get brain freeze,” Angela scoffed as she polished off the rest of the box. She loved Red Hots and went back for a second helping before scarfing down some chips with a bottle of the hottest salsa she could get her hands on.

“Guysss, I'm getting full,” Snake announced ten minutes later after stuffing himself with as much taffy as he could eat.

“Me too,” Arturo agreed.

“Arturo, you just stuffed yourself with coffee!” Angela protested. “You know, that stuff stunts your growth, but I see you don’t have to worry about that very much, now do you?”

“I hate you, Angie,” Arturo pouted.

They walked out of the convenience store without bothering to release the poor guy that they duct taped to the wall. They laughed hysterically as the clerk tried to free himself from the wall without any luck.

“Okay, so whose gonna get hit with the gun first?” Angela asked as she pulled the laser gun out from her tube top.

“Oh, oh, do me!” Ace volunteered.

“Um, eww,” Angela said quickly. “Not here in broad daylight.” Ace, who was normally very one-track minded, couldn’t understand why she was disgusted. “Why don’t we all just stand together and I’ll point that laser at all of us?” She suggested.

They agreed as they gathered around Angela, who held the laser in her hand and aimed it straight on at herself and her friends who surrounded her. She pulled the trigger and a red, hot beam of light shot out, engulfing them all.

“Are youssss sure thissss is gonna worksss?” Snake asked nervously.

Angela didn’t answer. It was too late to back out now, but she had a very bad feeling that with this venture, she had ordered more than she could eat. She couldn’t ever recall a time in which she was in so much pain as a searing, burning sensation radiating from her core dominated every fiber of her being. She wondered if she and the other members of the gang would burst like rotten fruits right here and right now, and in Hell, the six of them would be sitting around a fiery inferno asking each other where they went wrong.

“MAKE IT STOP!” Big Billy wailed. Angela released the trigger as the six of them collapsed on the ground, writhing in pain.

Angela didn’t feel any different. That is, until a split second later when she felt unusually warm. She slowly rose to her feet.

The warmth became uncomfortable, almost unbearable. The last time she remembered being this warm was when she was Princess’s age and she developed a fever that landed her in the hospital. Pity. It was probably one of the few times in her life in which her parents paid attention to her.

The warmth became more comfortable. In fact, Angela was embracing it. Her soul was on fire and she liked it. She watched as her pale flesh turned bright red. She was so fascinated with the change that she didn’t notice Ace had just sneezed and froze a nearby garbage can. She also didn’t notice Snake craning his neck in a disturbing way around her.

“Hey Angie!” Snake said, trying to get Angela’s attention. Angela nearly jumped back when she noticed Snake had managed to stretch his neck away from the rest of his body. “We all gotsssss the same powersss we did last timessss! Watch!” Snake stretched around a telephone pole as a means of showing off.

Angela looked around at her friends. Ace’s normally green flesh was instead an icy shade of blue. He was asking Grubber if he’d gotten the same powers as last time, and in response, Grubber let out a nasty belch that was probably loud enough to be heard from fifty miles away. Angela looked at the mass of grey rock that was Big Billy and asked, “Why did Big Billy turn into a rock? What kinda power is _that_?”

“What power did youssss get?” Snake asked as his spindly body craned around.

Angela was growing irritated with Snake, so she backhanded him. She didn’t realize that by doing so, flames shot out of her wrists and into her hands. Snake jumped back and yelped from the pain of being burnt in the face.

“Angie’s got fire powers!” Arturo pointed out as he dashed about quickly.  

Angela took her palm below her lips as though she were blowing a kiss and more flames shot out.

“Oh hell yeah!” Angela cried. “I could get _used_ to this!”

“Don’t,” Ace told her. “You know it ain't gonna last.”

“Well let’s not just _stand_ here!” Angela cried. “Let’s go do something fun while we still have superpowers!”

“I’ll race ya!” Arturo challenged as he sped down the sidewalk like a speed racer. Angela couldn’t run very fast, but everywhere she went, she left a trail of flaming cyclones in her wake.

 _She’s hot_ , Ace thought to himself as he watched Angie torch several buildings. _She’s real hot._

Shooting a trail of ice out of his hands, Ace followed the others as he quickly slid by. “For the next few hours,” he announced, “this town is _ours_!”

He was about to go into the First Bank of Townsville and tell everyone to “freeze” before trapping them in a block of ice, just like he did the last time. But to his surprise, Angie had already beaten him there.

“Gimme the money,” Angela demanded, “or I'm burning this place to the ground.”

Ace watched as the teller nervously counted up the hundred dollar bills and put them in a burlap bag with a dollar sign on it before handing it off to Angela. He grinned approvingly as flames shot out of Angela’s small, square hands, allowing the building to slowly burn.

“Nice move, Angie,” Ace said favorably. If Angela wasn’t already flushed with fever before, she certainly was now. “Now let’s go!”

They took the money and ran as wailing sirens from fire trucks and squad cars blared down the street. Of course, they wouldn’t need to worry if Grubber was belching loud enough to send the vehicles spinning through the air before crashing to the ground.

Ace and Angela caught up with Snake, who was draped in thousands of dollars worth of bling. He must’ve just been to the jewelry store.

“Awesomeness!”  Angela complimented, admiring the giant diamond dollar-sign that hung around Snake’s neck. “You finally got some bling to match your pimp-walk!”

“Thankssss!” Snake said as he was admiring his reflection in a puddle caused by a damaged fire hydrant, most likely one that Big Billy crushed. Snake stretched over and picked Big Billy off the sidewalk.

“Watch thissss!” Snake cried.

A block away at a pickle cart, the Mayor was order a large dill pickle to enjoy.

“Can I get anything else for you?” Asked the vender.

“Oh! Well, eh, sure!” The Mayor said. “Do you have any of those little sweet gherkins? I always _loved_ those!”

The vender was about to hand the Mayor a small jar of sweet pickles. Of course, the Mayor would never get them. In that instant, Snake dropped Big Billy on top of the pickle cart, thus crushing the poor vender and all of his merchandise.

“Nooooo!” The Mayor cried out in fury.

A few more hours flew by faster than Lil Arturo could run, and the super-Gangrene Gang managed to cover a lot of ground. They looted as many places as they could and caused massive collateral damage to almost every building in the city. The only buildings that, not surprisingly, still remained intact were the Circle J, the pizza shop, and the arcade. Anything else that was left was in the process of burning to the ground.

Angela couldn’t help but laugh at how messed up Townsville was. In Cityville, if she and the gang tried to pull a stunt like this, the military would probably get involved.

“Hehe,” Ace laughed as the other members of the Gangrene Gang looked pleased with their efforts. They stood amongst the rubble and admired the damage they left in their wake. “Not bad, boys!”

“Ahem!” Angela coughed, reminding him that there was a female among them.

“Oh, and eh, you too, Angie!” Ace added quickly.

Suddenly, Angie felt a sickening feeling deep down in her core.

“I don’t feel so great,” Angie said uneasily. “It feels like my stomach is gonna fall out of my ass.”

“Oh God, me too!” Arturo moaned.

“Aww, you meansss it’ssss over?” Snake said in disappointment.

“Big Billy gotta take a dump,” Big Billy announced.

Luckily, there were six porta-potties nearby, and so each of them went into one. Meanwhile, the police surrounded the porta-potties while the police chief announced into a megaphone, “Townsville police! We have you surrounded! Come out of the porta-potties with your hands up!”

It was then that the door to the porta-potty on the end creaked open and Angela poked her head out slightly as she yelled, “Oh my God! Wait your turn!” She slammed the door and there was complete silence.

The next day, the Powerpuff Girls returned to Townsville, horrified at the damage they were being exposed to as the Professor attempted to drive up the cracked roads in his little white car.

“Whoa!” Buttercup cried. “Something _crazy_ happened here!”

“Unfortunately, this is what happens when we leave for the weekend,” Blossom sighed.

“Hey look!” Bubbles pointed out. “It’s the Mayor! Aww and he looks so sad!”

“Stop the car, Professor!” Blossom demanded. “Come on girls, we gotta find out from the Mayor what happened here!”

The Professor allowed the car to come to a screeching halt as the girls bolted out of the car and landed in front of the Mayor.

“Oh! Hello girls!” The Mayor greeted, oblivious that anything had happened. “Did you have a nice visit with the Professor’s mom and dad?”

“No time for that, Mayor!” Blossom said quickly. “Something happened while we were gone to cause all this damage and we wanna know what!”

“Damage?” The Mayor asked as though he had no clue what Blossom was talking about. “Oh!” His oblivion turned to rage as he raved, “The Gangrene Gang somehow got superpowers and they completely crushed my favorite pickle cart!”

“Oh no, how’d they get superpowers _again_?” Buttercup asked irately.

“At least it was probably funny when they realized their powers didn’t last forever,” Bubbles giggled.

“But it _wasn’t_ funny!” The Mayor protested. “They had superpowers and this time, there was a _girl_ with them and she had powers too!”

“A _girl_?” The Powerpuff Girls asked in unison.

“Psh, what girl would wanna hang out with _them_?” Buttercup asked bitterly.

“You did!” Bubbles reminded her.

Suddenly, a monster came crashing through whatever was left of the downtown area. This monster had scaly pink skin, ten eyes, and a giant horn on top of its head.

“You can explain later!” Blossom cried. “Right now, we got work to do! Come on girls!”

A few hours later, the Gangrene Gang found themselves sitting in a jail cell, this time with Angela sitting with them. Ace couldn’t decide which was more irritating: the fact that Angie wouldn’t be able to bail them out this time, or the fact that they were able to repair the jail so fast.

They all sat there quietly moping, when Angela broke the silence with, “Oh boy, did we ever fuck up.” The guys didn’t say much. They just sort of nodded in agreement. “That was fun though! Let’s do that again!”

They all agreed that it was the best few hours of their lives. Finally, two huge guys in the cell next to them shouted, “Keep it down in there!”

“Sorry,” Angela quickly said. She looked at them. They looked like they could’ve been body builders.

“What’re you in for?” The guys asked her.

“Causing massive collateral damage,” Angela replied. “You?”

“We were framed for taking a car radio and beating up a girl,” one of them replied angrily. Angela then looked very, very nervous and the rest of the gang couldn’t figure out why.

“Keep it down in there!” Shouted the warden.

“How long do we have to stay in here for?” Angela asked.

“Until the next chapter,” the warden replied.

“Oh, in that case, we don’t have to wait very long, do we?” Angela said relieved.

 


	9. La Vie En Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ace finally reveals his true feelings for Angie. Meanwhile, the other boys can't keep their eyes off of her.

The morning after the Gangrene Gang and Angela were released from prison, Angela woke up as the sunlight hit her face. It was nice to wake up under her cozy little comforter on the cheap mattress and not in a cold jail cell. She glanced around and noticed that the others were still asleep.

She sat up and realized her chest felt very heavy and sore. At first she thought she was having a heart attack until she realized the pain was concentrated in her breasts. Or rather, what little she had.

“Oh _no_ ,” Angela groaned to herself in horror. This could only mean one thing: her breasts would start getting bigger, which would mean that the other guys would _definitely_ take notice.

Angela thought for a moment. It wouldn’t be so bad if Ace would stare below her neck. The mere thought made her turn fluorescent red. But the _others_? Angela shuddered; the other guys were cool, but they were _so_ not her type.

That’s when Angela stopped to ask herself what her type was, anyway. After all, she would be fifteen in a few months, and she hadn’t had much exposure to the opposite gender on account of the fact that she had only attended all-girls schools for most of her life.

Angela rolled her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. The others weren’t awake yet and wouldn’t be for a few more hours. Then an idea came to her. She crept out of her space on the floor and quietly tiptoed out of the room and out the door.

Maybe male attention _wouldn’t_ be such a bad thing after all.

A few hours later, the Gangrene Gang sat around watching TV. Instead of watching TV on the puny little six inch television set they were used to using, they were able to steal a nice plasma screen with Angela’s help. Of course, they were then starting to wonder where she was

“Anyone seen Angie?” Arturo asked while Snake and Grubber argued over the remote. They stopped fighting and looked at Arturo. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Who knows?” Ace responded as he shrugged his shoulders casually. Of course, he knew it wasn’t like Angie to just disappear without saying anything unless something happened to her.

Of course, their questions were answered when Angela walked through the door. Their jaws fell to the floor.

Angela was wearing a white halter dress with a pink flower on the collar and a pink sash around the waist. The dress was very tight around her chest, making what little chest Angela had more pronounced. None of the Gangrene Gang could take their eyes off of her.

Ace was tempted to get mad at Angie for spending their money on something like that. Then again, he was pretty sure she spent nothing. And even if she did, he couldn’t complain because he liked what he was looking at.

Angela couldn’t stop grinning; all teenage boys had to do was look at some curves and turn into bigger idiots than they already were. Even though Angela wasn’t used to the attention she was getting from them, she couldn’t deny that it was entertaining.

“Oh, so you like what you see?” Angela asked shyly. She was carrying a very expensive black and white designer handbag.

“So how much _was_ all this stuff?” Ace wanted to know. Now he was almost certain she stole all of it.

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know?” Angela asked as she winked at him. She tried to ignore the others, her focus only on him.

_Down boy, down boy_ , Ace thought to himself and his lower appendage as beads of sweat formed on his brow.

“Wanna see what else I got?” Angela asked. The others didn’t say a word; they merely nodded as Angela reached down her dress and pulled out all sorts of very, very expensive jewelry. She slapped it all down on the table as Grubber horded it all to himself, lapped it up with his freakishly long tongue, and swallowed it all.

“God dammit, Grubber!” Ace said furiously as Grubber belched.

“Oh, don’t you worry, Ace,” Angela said as she set her handbag down on the table and pulled out even more jewels as well as an mp3 player and a few cell phones.

“How’d youssss _get_ all thissss?” Snake asked as his eyes widened.

“Let’s just say I’ve gotten really, really good at robbing people blind,” Angela told him.

“I’ll say you have!” Arturo cried.

Ace couldn’t take his eyes off of Angie. This was one of those days in which she was being absolutely brilliant rather than being absolutely annoying.

And even then, there were days he didn’t mind humoring her childish antics.

The gang didn’t just enjoy having Angela steal for them. Angela realized she was absolutely right about how being the only girl in the gang would have its own affect on the guys sooner or later. The entire day and into that evening, they wouldn’t leave her alone. While Ace went to pick up dinner, Snake, Arturo, Grubber, and Big Billy all vied for Angela’s affection.

“Hey Angie!” Snake said as he handed Angela a wilting bouquet of weeds he picked out of a crack in the sidewalk. “I picked thessssse for youssss!”

Angela looked up at him. She was sitting against the wall listening to music on the mp3 player she stole and didn’t notice Snake was in front of her right away. She stood up and took the pathetic crumple of weeds.

“Uh, thanks,” Angela said, trying to be polite.

“Angie! I beat up some kid and took his lunch money, just for you!” Arturo cried eagerly as he handed Angela a few quarters.

“Aww, how sweet Arturo! Thank you,” Angela said in awe. She couldn’t resist Lil Arturo’s kindness towards her.

“Big Billy doesn’t want Angie to move,” Big Billy said as he swept Angela off her feet causing her to drop the flowers and the coins. “Big Billy will carry Angie to wherever she wants to go!”

“Gee, thanks Billy, but I don’t need any help getting anywhere,” Angela said. This attention was making her a little uneasy now. It was too much all at once. “Please put me down.”

“Okay!” Big Billy cried as he dropped Angela on the ground. She landed flat on her bottom. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Sure?” Angela said uneasily.

Big Billy lifted up his orange bangs that covered the top half of his face revealing one bright blue eye. Angela bit her lower lip to keep from screaming in shock. How was she supposed to know that one of the guys she had been living with for the last three weeks was a Cyclops?

“Come on Big Billy, that’s just nasty!” Arturo cried.

Grubber managed to silence the entire room by contorting his body so that he stood up straight. His face was no longer droopy, but instead he looked like a handsome young man. He began to speak with perfect elocution. Angela needed a moment to pick her jaw off the floor.

“Why William!” Grubber gasped in horror. “That is _no_ way to treat a lady!”

“Sorry,” Big Billy said slowly with guilt.

“Now, fair lady, allow me to serenade you!” Grubber offered as he walked over to the table and picked up a violin. He began to play just as he did in “Buttercrush”.

“Has he _always_ been able to do that?” Angela asked Arturo and Snake in a hushed voice.

“Sometimesssss,” Snake said. “Only when he wantsssss to, thoughsss.”

When Grubber was finish playing a beautiful waltz, Snake wiped away a tear of appreciation and Angela applauded.

“That was wonderful, Grubber!” Angela approved.

“And now, dear lady, I believe I shall give you a kiss,” Grubber said. He inched towards Angela. In a panic, Angela dashed from the room.

“Was it something I said?” Grubber asked. His body then snapped back into its normal, hunched state as he blew a big raspberry.

Ace walked through the door with a large pizza box in hand. He set it down on the table.

“Where’s Angie?” Ace asked. “She’s always the first one to know when I bring home pizza.”

“I think we scared her, Ace,” Arturo said ruefully. 

“ _What?!_ ” Ace asked.

“We wassss only trying to be nissssse to her,” Snake said. Ace clocked his right-hand man before smacking his forehead in frustration.

“Big Billy thinks Angie’s pretty,” Big Billy said slowly.

 “Yeah, she’s really hot,” Arturo agreed. Grubber blew a raspberry as though seconding the emotion.

“Too bad she’ssss gotsssss no titsss yet,” Snake said. Of course, his comment was met with a blow to the nose. “I mean, I think she likes you, Ace,” Snake quickly said as he rubbed his aching face.

Ace didn’t say anything. He _knew_ Angie was infatuated with him. He knew from the first time she saw him that she liked him.

“Look, why don’t yous guys eat. I’ll be right with you,” he said. The other guys looked really confused as their leader disappeared from the room.

Angela sat on the roof of the wooden shack staring up at the waning crescent moon. As much as she enjoyed the attention she was getting from the other guys, she had never had it happen before. The newness of it all was too much at once. Did _all_ teenage guys get this way every time they saw a cute girl? Or was it just because of the fact that she was the only girl that would even actually get _near_ them? Either way, she needed a moment to breathe. Little did she realize that Ace was right behind her.

Ace was watching her quietly. He remembered the first time he met her, how he thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of her little crush on him. Ace knew nothing about Angie, but he knew for a fact that wherever she was from, she was especially naïve. The fact that she was using her femininity to rob people blind had to have been due to sheer dumb luck; there was no other way to explain it. Either way, he liked that about her. He would just end up using her abilities and her trust in him to his advantage so he and his friends could take over the city that spurned them.

Of course, there were a lot of other things about Angie that Ace had learned to like. What would be the point of taking advantage of her feelings when the feeling was mutual?

If he were to take over Townsville tomorrow and become the king, Ace knew exactly who he would pick as his queen.

“So eh, do you come here often?” Ace asked as he sat next to Angela on the roof of the shack.

“I just needed a break was all,” Angela said. “I'm okay.”

“It’s awfully cold out here, ya know,” Ace told her.

“I know,” she nodded.

“You know Angie, you’re not like other girls I know,” Ace pointed out. “No one would know it, but you’re pretty tough. And it don’t hurt that yous know how to have fun,” he added with a slightly devilish grin.

Angela glanced over at him as her heart began to beat a little bit harder. She noticed his smile, those fangs. She liked the fact that everything about him was dangerous, even down to his smile.

“Angie, what does a girl like you see in a guy like me?” Ace asked in his usual, charming manner. “I mean, I'm not the kinda guy that you’d bring home to yer mother.”

Angela was about to ask how he knew that she saw anything at all in him. Of course, there was no point in trying to play dumb. Instead, she laughed.

“I think it’s for that same reason I _do_ like you,” Angela laughed.  “If I were to bring you home to my mother, she’d take one look at you and…” she was going to say that if her mother got one look at Ace, she’d tell Angela that she was out of the will. Instead, she let the thought trail off before adding, “Well, you get the idea. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met in my life. Look, I don’t need to tell you what I was doing before I met you guys. But either way, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

Ace looked at Angela and he looked at her. Angela longed to know what sort of eyes were behind those shades. Ace lowered his shades to look Angela dead on. His eyes, she observed, were dark and even a little innocent. But at the same time, they seemed to stare right through her soul.

_If your body matches what your eyes can do_ , Angela thought. Everything in the scene was moving so quickly yet perfectly frozen at the same time. She had never felt this way before and she never wanted this feeling to end.

Angela yanked Ace’s shades out of his possession and put them on.

“Oh my,” Angela said seductively as Ace was dumbfounded that she could move so quickly. “I got your shades. Whatcha gonna do about it, hmmm?”

Ace leaned in to her and she leaned in to him. They kissed each other long and passionately. Ace began inching his hands towards Angela’s chest until they heard chanting.

“Ace and Angie sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” Snake, Lil Arturo, and Big Billy all sang out in unison while Grubber blew raspberries along with the group. Ace and Angela pulled away from each other in horror.

“Beat it!” Ace shouted.

“Wait a second, aren’t they’s sitting on a roof?” Big Billy pointed out.

“Oh my God,” Angela muttered as her face turned beat red. Her first kiss and someone walked in on it. At least it wasn’t her _parents_ that walked in.

The rest of the gang disappeared down the hatch that led up to the roof, leaving Angela and Ace alone.

“For the most part, that was amazing,” Angela said, giggling.

“Wanna do it again?” Ace asked, adding that grin that Angela knew and loved..

“Do I ever!” Angela squealed.

They kissed each other again. This wasn’t the first time Ace had kissed a girl. But it _was_ the first time he’d kissed a girl and felt something other than throbbing below the belt.

Ace wasn’t ready to accept the fact that he had a heart, just like any other human being. But maybe one of these days, he would.

They parted as soft, romantic music began to fill the night air. Angela recognized the melody from somewhere before. She remembered an old, solid gold music box that was in her room back at her house. When she was Princess’s age, she received it from Grandmother Morbucks for her birthday. That was the last year that Grandmother Morbucks was alive. If Angela thought hard enough, she would remember the words.

Two seconds later, Snake and Grubber popped through the hatch.

“I thought I told you guys to beat it!” Ace yelled.

“Ssssorry Ace!” Snake quickly apologized. “But Grubber swallowed a record player by accident and he needs help!”

Grubber tried to blow a raspberry, but instead, Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” continued to play. Angela couldn’t stop laughing because only Grubber could ruin a romantic moment by swallowing a record player.

Random vignettes set to Celine Dion’s cover of “La Vie En Rose” reveal Ace and Angela spending time together. The first scene shows Angela flirting with a sales representative in an upscale jewelry shop, thus distracting him so Ace could loot the shop. Afterwards, he places a huge diamond necklace around Angela’s neck. The next vignette shows Ace and Angela jumping out of the bushes on Halloween night and scaring little kids out of their Halloween candy before cutting to a scene of Angela and Ace giving Grubber a can of peanuts only for Grubber to open it with foam snakes flying out at him and exploding out in a string of terrified raspberries. Another scene includes the gang spray-painting buildings with Angela painting two giant hearts joined together on a billboard. She turns around to give Ace a wink when she slips and loses her balance. She falls right into Ace’s arms as he catches her and they both laugh. The next scene shows the gang at the park playing foursquare utilizing Arturo as the ball before it begins to rain and they leave the park. As they are walking, Ace notices a guy placing his trench coat over a puddle so his girlfriend wouldn’t have to walk over it. Ace then commands Big Billy to lie across the puddle and so Ace takes Angela by the hand as they walk across Big Billy who is lying on the ground and laughing hysterically. The two of them then sneak off behind a building and begin to kiss each other passionately as the rain drenches them. The last scene shows Angela and Ace walking in the Townsville mall. Angela walks along the rim of a water fountain when she slips and falls in. She comes back up after floating around in the water for a bit and Ace laughs at her when he notices that her white dress is very, very see-through in the chest. Angela drags him into the water fountain with her and the song ends with the two of them sitting in the fountain laughing. 


End file.
